Schuon Frithjof - World wheel, volumes IV-VII: poems

It seems that mystical experience almost inevitably leads to poetry. The great mystics all over the world used the language of poetry when trying to beckon to a mystery that lies beyond normal human experience, and the most glorious works in Eastern and Western religions are the hymns of the mystics, be they Sufis or Christians, Hindus or Zen monks. Different as their expressions are, one feels that the poetical word can more easily lead to the mystery that is hidden behind the veils of intellectual knowledge and which cannot be fettered in logical speech.

In the world of Islam, the love-intoxicated poems of Maulana Jalaladdin Rumi are considered by many to be the Koran in the Persian tongue, and Rumi is only one of many intoxicated souls who expressed their love and longing, and their experience of the Divine Unity, in verse. And even those mystics who preferred a more intellectual approach to the Absolute couched their experiences in verse. The prime example is, of course, Ibn Arabi whose Tarjuman al-ashwaq translated his experience of the One, Unattainable Deity into the language of traditional Arabic poetry.

Taking this fact into consideration we are not surprised that Frithjof Schuon too felt compelled to write poetryand, it is important to note, poetry in his German mother tongue. His verse sometimes reflects ideas and images of R. M. Rilkes Stundenbuch, in which the expert on mysticism can find some strange echoes of Ibn Arabis ideas. This may be an accident, for mystical ideas are similar all over the world; but the German reader of Schuons verses enjoys the familiar sound. This sound could not be maintained in the English translations of his poetry. Yet, as he himself explains, what really matters is the content, and here we listen to the thinker who, far from the intricate and complex scholarly sentences of his learned prose works, sings the simple prayers of the longing soul: God is the center, the primordial ground which comprehends everything, manifesting Himself through the colorful play of His creations. And it is the human heart which alone can reflect the incomprehensible Being, for humanitys central quality is divinely inspired love, which is the axis of our life.

I hope that Schuons mystical verse will be read not only by English speaking readers but even more by those who understand German.1 They will enjoy many of these tender lyrics which show the famous thinker in a very different light and from an unexpected side.

Annemarie Schimmel, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

Adona Elohenu, Adona Ehat (Hebrew): The Lord our God, the Lord is One

(Arabic): God is generous

Alt Heidelberg, du Feine (German): Old Heidelberg (old city in South Germany), you beautiful one

Beaut oblige (French): Beauty obliges

Bni soit son saint Nom (French): Blessd be His Holy Name

Brahma Satyam (Sanskrit): God is real

Brahma Satyam; jagan (Sanskrit): God is real, the world is appearance.

Cuando Dios quiere (Spanish): When God wills

Deo gratias (Latin): Thanks be to God

Errare humanum est; perseverare diabolicum (Latin): To err is human, but to persevere in error is diabolic (Seneca the younger); Humanum fuit errare, diabolicum est per animositatem in erroremanere: To err was human but to remain in error because of passion is diabolic (St. Augustine, Sermon 164, 14)

Frihet garutfron den ljungande Pol (Norwegian): Freedom comes from the thunderous pole .

as t (Persian): It is here

Il nome del bel Fior chio sempre invoco (Italian): The name of the fair flower that I always invoke. From Dantes Divina Commedia, Paradiso XXIII.88

Insignifiant est ce quon exagre (French): What one exaggerates loses its meaning

(Arabic):There is no divinity but God

Le coeur qui tend vers Dieu, na rien craindre (French): The heart which turns to God has nothing to fear

Le franais dfinit; lallemand veut peindre / Dans lEsprit les gnies devraient se joindre (French): French defines, German seeks to paint, the geniuses [of the two languagues] combine in the Spirit

Ma gi volgeva il mio disio el velle / S come rota chigualmente mossa / Lamor che muove il sole e laltre stelle (Italian): But now my desire and will were turned / like a wheel that is evenly moved, / by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars. From Dantes Divina Commedia, Paradiso XXXIII.143-145

Ma per trattar del ben chio vi trovai, / Dir de laltre cose chio vho scorte (Italian): But in order to treat of the good that I found there, / I will speak of other things that I saw. From Dantes