Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism [Paperback]

Rene Guenon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 2004

'In Islam,' Guénon wrote, 'tradition is of a double essence: religious and metaphysical. The religious side of the doctrine, which is most outward and is within reach of everyone, can be qualified quite precisely as exoteric, and the metaphysical, which constitutes its deeper meaning and, furthermore, is regarded as the doctrine of the elite, as esoteric. This distinction indeed conserves its proper meaning, since these are two faces of one and the same doctrine.' Asked what he thought of esoteric teaching, the great Sufi master al-Hallaj responded: 'Of which do you wish to speak, the true or the false (batin al-batil aw batin al-Haqq)? If it is a question of true esoterism, the exoterism (shari'ah) is its exterior aspect and whoever follows it truly discovers its interior aspect, which is none other than the knowledge of Allah (ma'rifah bi'llah); as for false esoterism, its exterior and interior aspects are both equally horrible and detestable. Therefore hold yourself aloof from it.' It is fitting to add that for Guénon, esoterism is always and everywhere the same, whatever name is given it according to the variety and diversity of countries and traditions. If true knowledge of ultimate Reality is the final object of esoteric inquiry, the methods utilized, although often analogous, are not necessarily identical; they may vary just as languages or individuals vary. 'The diversity of methods,' Guénon wrote, 'corresponds to the very diversity of individual natures for which they were made; there is a multiplicity of ways all leading to a unique goal.'

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Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

About the Author

René Guénon (1886–1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization. René Guénon, of whom Jacob Needleman wrote in The Sword of Gnosis that ‘no other modern writer has so effectively communicated the absoluteness of truth,’ is gradually being recognized by deeper thinkers as one of the few who have truly penetrated the seductive veil of the modern age. As an expositor of pure metaphysics and its application to the science of symbols, Guénon is without peer; and his extraordinarily prescient critique of the modern world is attracting more and more attention among cultural commentators. Little known in the English-speaking world till the recent appearance of his Collected Works in translation, Guénon has nevertheless long been recognized as a veritable criterion of truth by a vanguard of remarkable writers who evince that rare combination: intellectuality and spirituality. After a lonely childhood, often interrupted by ill health, Guénon navigated the seductive half-truths of occultism toward a deeper, unified vision offering a way out from the confusion and fragmentation of our time. Regarded by leading scholars as the first truly authentic interpreter of many Eastern doctrines in the West, Guénon never tired, in face of the seemingly inexorable process of dissolution in the twentieth century, of pointing to the transcendent unity of all religious faiths and the abiding Truth that contains them all.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Sophia Perennis (June 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0900588438
• ISBN-13: 978-0900588433
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #406,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guénon on Sufism and Taoism, September 13, 2001

By 

Richard B. Forsaith (France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism (Collected Works of Rene Guenon) (Hardcover)

First published in 1973 as "Aperçus sur l'ésoterisme islamique et le taoisme" (Gallimard, Paris), this book is a posthumous collection of articles that Guénon (who died in 1951) wrote for various french journals. As such, there is no overiding theme to the book as one finds in the works of Guénon that were conceived as books in the first place. However, as Guénon says on several occasions, his "sole interest" being the universal and timeless metaphysic or "wisdom" that lies at the heart of every tradition, and which he calls the "Primordial Tradition", the diverse articles of this collection hang together like the beads of a necklace, of which the cord is metaphysical truth. One may use this analogy, indeed, to describe the ensemble of Guénon's work, which are partly characterised by their lack of "development", as if they were all conceived at the same moment and simply written out over the years; and this because true ideas, as Guénon reminds us, do not change or "develop" but remain as they are in the timeless "present".
Eight of the articles presented in this collection are devoted to the islamic tradition, in particular to various aspects of islamic esoterism or "Tasawwuf", the arabic term for what is popularly called "Sufism" in the West and which literally means "initiation". Subjects covered in these articles include: the relationship between the exoteric and esoteric dimensions of Islam, which Guénon shows to be inseperable and reciprocal; the doctrine of Unity (at-Tawhid); the notion of "spiritual poverty" (al-Faqr); the Spirit (ar-Ruh); the angelogy of the arabic alphabet; the islamic science of hand-reading; and the influence of the islamic civilization on the West.
After these comes an essay on the important difference between the religious doctrine, or dogma, of "creation" and the metaphysical doctrine of "manifestation", which Guénon shows to be two ways of expressing the same fundamental truth, namely, the absolute dependence of all created or manifested things upon the divine and supreme Principle.
The final chapter deals with the Chinese tradition in which the exoteric and esoteric domains are represented by Confucianism and Taoism respectively. Commenting on the more or less complete destruction of the former under the communist regime, Guénon reminds us that, while Confucianism, as the exterior aspect of the Chinese tradition, may disappear, Taoism, being the interior aspect of the tradition, never will, for it is in essence beyond all contingencies like the Truth itself.
The islamic articles give a precise and masterful summary of what constitutes, essentially, islamic esoterism and are obviously written by someone who, while recognising the truth in all traditional forms, nevertheless had a personal attachment to one form in particular, namely Islam. As such, this book will serve as a refreshing antidote to the "pseudo-Sufi" literature that is now circulating in the modern world, the productions of individuals who call themselves "Sufi" without, however, having any fidelity to the Islamic tradition. But Sufism, or better, Tasawwuf, as Guénon shows, is the internal dimension of Islam, with initiatic chains that go back all the way to the Prophet Muhammed himself. "Sufism," writes Guénon, "is arab like the Qu'ran itself, in which it has it's direct principles".
In short, without adherence to Islam, Guénon is saying, there is no real Tasawwuf, hence no real spirituality. After reading this book, one will be left in no doubt of this and one will have a much deeper understanding of what, essentially, constitutes Islamic esoterism and, with that, a deeper understanding of what constitutes esoterism in general.