Schimmel Annemarie - World wheel: volumes IV - VIII

The Transcendent Unity of Religions
Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts
Gnosis: Divine Wisdom
Language of the Self
Stations of Wisdom
Understanding Islam
Light on the Ancient Worlds
In the Tracks of Buddhism
Treasures of Buddhism
Logic and Transcendence
Esoterism as Principle and as Way
Castes and Races
Sufism: Veil and Quintessence
From the Divine to the Human
Christianity/Islam: Essays on Esoteric Ecumenicism
Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism
In the Face of the Absolute
The Feathered Sun: Plains Indians in Art and Philosophy
To Have a Center
Roots of the Human Condition
Images of Primordial and Mystic Beauty: Paintings by Frithjof Schuon
Echoes of Perennial Wisdom
The Play of Masks
The Transfiguration of Man
The Eye of the Heart
Form and Substance in the Religions

The Essential Writings of Frithjof Schuon, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr
The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity,
ed. James S. Cutsinger
Prayer Fashions Man: Frithjof Schuon on the Spiritual Life,
ed. James S. Cutsinger
Art from the Sacred to the Profane: East and West
ed. Catherine Schuon

I

The world wheel turns, and thou art the center
Because thou carriest the Spirit which contains the universe
And which is divine, without beginning, without end;
Where the point is, there is the whole world.

II

The first thing is
Piously to remember the Real; then, to accept
Whatever happens to thee as coming from God;
And then to know that thy destiny blossoms in Gods hands.

III

The inward and the outward.
Creator and Creation, garment of our Lord.
Soul and body; Spirit and Word;
The world-wheels center and rotations rim.

Think not that the outward is small and insignificant
The form must be the expression of its content.

IV

Content, container: the latter is sacred
Through the former. So despise not
What is mere vehicle. Whatever expresses
The Divine is Gods Countenance.

The soul should thus become what the Spirit
Has received from God. Everything is Divine
Which manifests Gods Nature through its form.

V

What justifies the repetition of things
Already said? Not the new form,
But the deep richness of the Mystery;
Hence the gift of a new accentuation

The True which shifts its emphasis.
Just as, in a new abode, one loves with the same heart
But in a new way, what one has loved before.

VI

Firstly: Truth is Peace
This is what every heart must carry within itself.
Secondly: Gods wise providence is here
Thou shouldst trust and shouldst not ask.

VII

The Lord made women dear to me,
Mohammed said. Ibn explains:

This is because the whole loves its half;
Because, in loving, wisdom turns to beauty.

As Plato said: The beautiful is the splendor
Of the true the two mysteries have gone hand in hand
Ever since world and life began.

VIII

In India some say that men of genius,
If they are good, are jivan-muktas
Delivered in this life. One should not take
This literally; but one can easily see
That great creators, such as Beethoven,
In their art often walk with the angels.

IX

I heard it preached that faith
Is unnecessary, if we are good people.
What does one call goodness? If a man boasts,
All his good actions are lost in the wind.

X

Heresy is a shifting concept
It is heretical to deny what saves us.
Also heretical is a limited viewpoint
That is suitable only for certain souls;
And likewise the opinion that only color is light:
That only one form of faith can be the Truth.

But if one measures with the measure of Truth,
Only Primordial Wisdom is orthodox.

XI

Everything on earth has an end.
When a poem comes, I think it is the last;
Maybe it would be better if, before God,
I replaced it with some other act.

I have often thought I would lay down my pen,
As I have already said everything.
But I am not the Master of my songs;
I cannot withhold Gods gift.

Certainly, whatever is useful should reach the world
And may it be received with an open mind.

XII

Every woman who is beautiful and noble
Brings something of to this earth
Something that blesses it; so that the world,
Through Heavens nearness, becomes purer and better.

XIII

What reminds us of God? Not beauty alone,
But also greatness: majesty, dignity, strength,
And great deeds; greatness bears witness to the Lord,
As do all the wonders the Most High creates
As does also love, our lifes star.

XIV

The basilica in Rome was magnificent.
The Renaissance destroyed this splendor
And replaced it with oppressive ostentation;
It stabbed the Church in the heart,
Unleashed the whole deceit and lie of modern times,
And thus made the whole world sick.

The Renaissance in German called neo-Antiquity;
A better expression would be neo-paganism.

XV

The wooden buildings of Japan. How wonderful is the idea
Of ceaselessly rebuilding the same buildings
And entrusting the indestructibility of the shrines of the gods
To the priests and the faithful.

XVI

, lonely in forest:
Divine Flute Player, come soon
I thirst after Heavens melodies.

For beauty tells us that God has forgiven us.

XVII

Let no one say that man does not need
The beautiful; for all religions
Lived in beauty, while they still bloomed freely
Something they no longer do in this time of sick epigones;
Rome was falsified from the Cinquecento onwards
The greatness of the art-destroyers was a mania.

In our age of ugliness we more than ever
Need the beautiful in order to live
As men should live.
In order to lift the soul
From the din of the world, up to Heaven.

XVIII

The agreeable has two aspects:
One that is harmful, and another that is uplifting;
Mysticism sees only the harmful side;
Gnosis sees that in which Divinity lives.

XIX

God-remembrance the Prophet said
Is not only thinking of the Most High;
It is also all noble things that lead the soul
To that remembrance, and to salvation.

XX

Some do what they read in the law;
For others the law is the nature of things.
The pious call good what the Most High loves;
The wise call good what derives from Being.

Not everyone is a penitent in the desert,
Nor a Krishna who kissed the gopis.
There are diverse viewpoints in the Spirits realm
The paths that God blesses are of equal value .

XXI

Someone asked an Australian aboriginal:
Why do you shut your ears to what is new,
To our progress, and to our religion?
He replied: You ought not to disturb our peace
What alone counts for us is That which is, and never was not;
It is invisible, and it is wondrous.

XXII

God is not man; thou art not only an I;
The will is not everything, nor is sentiment.
Within thee is the pure Intellect; in it dwells God.
Whoever loves the Truth is in Gods Will.

XXIII

God deep in the heart chatter all around;
Blessd repose in the midst of human agitation.