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Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts

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If for some reason I were limited to owning just one book by Frithjof Schuon, it would be "Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts." There are several of his books that could be said to summarize his viewpoint, but this one is unique. Central to Schuon is Plato's dictum, "Beauty is the splendor of the True." Essentially, these are the two indispensable poles by which humanity lives. These six essays explain why and how.

On the one hand, Schuon is convincing through his dialectic, which is both concise and comprehensive-there are no wasted words. But he is no less so through his ability to evoke the life of the soul in its inmost: "Love is in the depths of man even as water is in the depths of the earth, and man suffers from not being able to enjoy this infinity which he bears in himself and for which he is made. It is necessary to dig deep into the soil of the soul through layers of aridity and bitterness in order to find love and to live on it."

The content of the essays includes the fundamental principles of metaphysics, an overview of the traditional worlds, the guiding themes of inward spiritual life and reflections on the beauty of art and nature. The style is almost aphoristic, so that in any chapter, the reader can choose to concentrate on the meaning expressed in a few paragraphs or to assimilate the whole ensemble of ideas in its entirety. In fact, one will find occasions for both, because there are jewels here that one wants to appreciate in their luminous kernel as well as in the radiance of their unfolding:

"Beauty is a crystallization of some aspect of universal joy; it is something limitless expressed by means of a limit."