The Essential Frithjof Schuon (Frithjof Schuon/Seyyed Hussein Nasr)
A Two-Star Tome
[My 2-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Essential Frithjof Schuon” by Frithjof Schuon/Seyyed Hussein Nasr.]
I first attempted to read this 500-plus page tome in 2007 but gave up because I found the content unimpressive and the writing dense and disagreeable. But when I received my copy from storage several months ago, I decided to give Schuon, an iconic scholar, another shot.
Schuon (1907-1998), the foremost expositor of the Traditionalist School of the Perennial Philosophy, which includes Rene Guenon (1877-1947), Ananda Coomeraswamy (1877-1947), and Titus Burkhardt (1908-1984), was praised by numerous spiritual figures and intellectuals (including Huston Smith, T.S. Eliot, Jacob Needleman, Thomas Merton, L. Schaya, Jean Danielou, D.T. Suzuki, Swami Ramdas, and T.H.P. Mahadevan); but after my first read I did not share the sentiments of these prominent Schuon enthusiasts.
I began my second attempt by punctiliously reading the book's 63-page Introduction, by Seyyed Hussein Nasr, a renowned professor of Islamic Studies and the preeminent Schuon scholar--and I was so impressed with it, I ordered a copy of Schuon's "The Transcendent Unity of Religions." But, alas, once I started reading Schuon himself, I again found myself unhappy with his circumscribed thinking and ponderous prose.
Schuon is a defender of orthodoxy who believes that mysticism should be tied to a religious tradition. Although he doesn't identify them by name, it is clear that he has nothing but disdain for the revolutionary spiritual philosophers Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo. For example, Schuon writes:
"This neo-yogism, like other similar movements, pretends that it can add add an essential value to the wisdom of our ancestors; it belies that religions are partial truths which it is called upon to stick together, after hundreds or thousands of years of waiting, and to crown with its own naïve little system... It is far better to believe that the earth is a disk supported by a tortoise and flanked by four elephants than to believe, in the name of `evolution,' in the coming of some `superhuman' monster."
Unlike Schuon, I have little regard for mainstream religious traditions and believe that true mysticism, the essential Perennial Philosophy, can best flourish outside the confines of stifling orthodox religion. Unlike Schuon, I embrace rather than denigrate radical (or gone-to-the root) spiritual antinomianism.The real problem with Schuon is that he can't write simply and clearly or think widely and deeply. Here's a typical example of his prose:
"Trinitarian theology gives rise to a comparable hiatus between a very subtle and complex transcendent reality, described as "inexhaustible" by Saint Augustine himself, and logic that is dogmatically coagulative and piously unilateral, that is to say, determined by the necessity of adapting the mystery to a mentality more volatatile than contemplative."
I'm an expert in Trinitarian philosophy, and I say that Schuon does not grok the Trinity and expresses his ignorance in a cumbersome and unappealing "style." As a spiritual writer, he's the antipode of the ultra-clear, super-fluid Alan Watts.
This text contains chapters on Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the respective lengths of the chapters clues one in on which religion Schuon favors. Hinduism is 14 pages, Buddhism 16, Judaism, 7, Christianity, 29, and Islam 44. Not surprisingly, Schuon was an initiate of Sheikh al-Alawi, a Sufi (Islam) master, who, in alignment with Schuon, did not understand or appreciate the Christian Trinity. Here's what Wikipedia says about al-Alawi: "Although Sheikh al-Alawi showed unusual respect for Christians, and was in some ways an early practitioner of inter-religious dialogue, a piece of his message to Christians was that if only they would abandon the doctrines of the Trinity and of Incarnation nothing would then separate us."
Schuon's chapters on Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism are just as bad as his one on Christianity. He focuses on the superficial, exoteric aspects of these religions rather than on the deep, esoteric ones. For example, the chapter on Hinduism centers on Vedanta and the caste system and doesn't mention Tantrism; the chapter on Buddhism avoids Tibetan Dzogchen and Mahamudra; and the chapter on Judaism ignores Kabbalah.
A major problem with this text is that it lacks an index. A scholarly tome without an index is like a man without gonads: severely compromised. In my opinion, this problem on top of the book's other problems makes this text a two-star tome.
[My 2-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Essential Frithjof Schuon” by Frithjof Schuon/Seyyed Hussein Nasr.]
I first attempted to read this 500-plus page tome in 2007 but gave up because I found the content unimpressive and the writing dense and disagreeable. But when I received my copy from storage several months ago, I decided to give Schuon, an iconic scholar, another shot.
Schuon (1907-1998), the foremost expositor of the Traditionalist School of the Perennial Philosophy, which includes Rene Guenon (1877-1947), Ananda Coomeraswamy (1877-1947), and Titus Burkhardt (1908-1984), was praised by numerous spiritual figures and intellectuals (including Huston Smith, T.S. Eliot, Jacob Needleman, Thomas Merton, L. Schaya, Jean Danielou, D.T. Suzuki, Swami Ramdas, and T.H.P. Mahadevan); but after my first read I did not share the sentiments of these prominent Schuon enthusiasts.
I began my second attempt by punctiliously reading the book's 63-page Introduction, by Seyyed Hussein Nasr, a renowned professor of Islamic Studies and the preeminent Schuon scholar--and I was so impressed with it, I ordered a copy of Schuon's "The Transcendent Unity of Religions." But, alas, once I started reading Schuon himself, I again found myself unhappy with his circumscribed thinking and ponderous prose.
Schuon is a defender of orthodoxy who believes that mysticism should be tied to a religious tradition. Although he doesn't identify them by name, it is clear that he has nothing but disdain for the revolutionary spiritual philosophers Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo. For example, Schuon writes:
"This neo-yogism, like other similar movements, pretends that it can add add an essential value to the wisdom of our ancestors; it belies that religions are partial truths which it is called upon to stick together, after hundreds or thousands of years of waiting, and to crown with its own naïve little system... It is far better to believe that the earth is a disk supported by a tortoise and flanked by four elephants than to believe, in the name of `evolution,' in the coming of some `superhuman' monster."
Unlike Schuon, I have little regard for mainstream religious traditions and believe that true mysticism, the essential Perennial Philosophy, can best flourish outside the confines of stifling orthodox religion. Unlike Schuon, I embrace rather than denigrate radical (or gone-to-the root) spiritual antinomianism.The real problem with Schuon is that he can't write simply and clearly or think widely and deeply. Here's a typical example of his prose:
"Trinitarian theology gives rise to a comparable hiatus between a very subtle and complex transcendent reality, described as "inexhaustible" by Saint Augustine himself, and logic that is dogmatically coagulative and piously unilateral, that is to say, determined by the necessity of adapting the mystery to a mentality more volatatile than contemplative."
I'm an expert in Trinitarian philosophy, and I say that Schuon does not grok the Trinity and expresses his ignorance in a cumbersome and unappealing "style." As a spiritual writer, he's the antipode of the ultra-clear, super-fluid Alan Watts.
This text contains chapters on Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the respective lengths of the chapters clues one in on which religion Schuon favors. Hinduism is 14 pages, Buddhism 16, Judaism, 7, Christianity, 29, and Islam 44. Not surprisingly, Schuon was an initiate of Sheikh al-Alawi, a Sufi (Islam) master, who, in alignment with Schuon, did not understand or appreciate the Christian Trinity. Here's what Wikipedia says about al-Alawi: "Although Sheikh al-Alawi showed unusual respect for Christians, and was in some ways an early practitioner of inter-religious dialogue, a piece of his message to Christians was that if only they would abandon the doctrines of the Trinity and of Incarnation nothing would then separate us."
Schuon's chapters on Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism are just as bad as his one on Christianity. He focuses on the superficial, exoteric aspects of these religions rather than on the deep, esoteric ones. For example, the chapter on Hinduism centers on Vedanta and the caste system and doesn't mention Tantrism; the chapter on Buddhism avoids Tibetan Dzogchen and Mahamudra; and the chapter on Judaism ignores Kabbalah.
A major problem with this text is that it lacks an index. A scholarly tome without an index is like a man without gonads: severely compromised. In my opinion, this problem on top of the book's other problems makes this text a two-star tome.
