René Guénon and traditional metaphysics

[Hedge90]

I've just finished reading two treatises by French traditionalist René Guénon on the metaphysical doctrine of the Vedas: Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, and The Multiple States of the Being.
These books are pure metaphysics, without any religious undertones (also explaining that anything religious is just an inferior and necessarily limited conceptuation of the metaphysical). They were quite hard reads (let's just say Guénon is not very prone to writing concisely), but I found them very interesting and very much in line with what is frequently discussed here.
Cleric and Ashvin, you frequently state that traditional forms of metaphysics were limited in scope due to - if I'm not mistaken - the metamorphosis the World Content and human Thinking. However, based on these treatises, I find them anything but limited. In fact I found in it many of the concepts you frequently talk about, albeit conceptuated slightly differently.
The difference, however, is what is set as the end goal of metaphysical development and realisation. If I understand correctly, in Steiner's philosophy, the metaphysical composition of Being changes as we (and probably other beings) develop, and a metamorphosis takes place, with ever increasing degrees of meaning being realised. In Vedanta metaphysics, this is taken into account, but not as the end goal, simply the probable (but not strictly necessary) means of total realisation; total realisation being the fully unconditioned state carrying within itself the potential of the infinitude of possible states. This is what the Vedas call Moksha, and treat as - literally - infinitely superior to anything below it, since it contains within itself as potential every degree and form of being (and non-being). It renders every manifested reality illusory, since it contains all (the infinitude) of them. And it is said that this is the ultimate fate of every individual being and every path, the zero point to which everything always returns.
I have to say as far as I see it this is not some "more primitive" conception of metaphysics and spiritual development than the Steinerian one; on the contrary, it includes and transcends the latter. What is your opinion on this?

[AshvinP]

I've just finished reading two treatises by French traditionalist René Guénon on the metaphysical doctrine of the Vedas: Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, and The Multiple States of the Being.
These books are pure metaphysics, without any religious undertones (also explaining that anything religious is just an inferior and necessarily limited conceptuation of the metaphysical). They were quite hard reads (let's just say Guénon is not very prone to writing concisely), but I found them very interesting and very much in line with what is frequently discussed here.
Cleric and Ashvin, you frequently state that traditional forms of metaphysics were limited in scope due to - if I'm not mistaken - the metamorphosis the World Content and human Thinking. However, based on these treatises, I find them anything but limited. In fact I found in it many of the concepts you frequently talk about, albeit conceptuated slightly differently.
The difference, however, is what is set as the end goal of metaphysical development and realisation. If I understand correctly, in Steiner's philosophy, the metaphysical composition of Being changes as we (and probably other beings) develop, and a metamorphosis takes place, with ever increasing degrees of meaning being realised. In Vedanta metaphysics, this is taken into account, but not as the end goal, simply the probable (but not strictly necessary) means of total realisation; total realisation being the fully unconditioned state carrying within itself the potential of the infinitude of possible states. This is what the Vedas call Moksha, and treat as - literally - infinitely superior to anything below it, since it contains within itself as potential every degree and form of being (and non-being). It renders every manifested reality illusory, since it contains all (the infinitude) of them. And it is said that this is the ultimate fate of every individual being and every path, the zero point to which everything always returns.
I have to say as far as I see it this is not some "more primitive" conception of metaphysics and spiritual development than the Steinerian one; on the contrary, it includes and transcends the latter. What is your opinion on this?

Hedge,

The issue, as always, is abstract theory vs. living reality. Metaphysical theories are not "wrong", they only remain woefully incomplete because they only deal in abstractions, i.e. they stand apart from the Cosmos and treat it as an object to speculate over with various models and configuarations of intellectual concepts. This also includes religious systems of understanding. Steiner is not speculating on what we "should" do, or how reality "should" be, or any "end goals". The only end goal for him is that we reach shared understanding of how Reality is via independent reasoning. Without any dualistic assumption, what Reality is, in its essence, and how it functions in our experience, or through our thinking-experience, is unified. We find the concrete nexus of appearance (thought-forms) and reality (meaning) in the observation of our own thinking activity. All of the value really comes from reasoning this out for ourselves, though, not merely accepting Steiner's or anyone else's conclusions. That is why he takes the methodical phenomenological approach in PoF, so the Spirit can really come alive within us as we follow the reasoning. It is as if we are participating in the writing of the book while also reading it, because there is an inner logical necessity that flows from the concrete foundations of perception-cognition. The other title for the book is The Philosophy of Freedom, because Freedom is what essentially results from our Spiritual Activity of deep and qualitative thinking, which gradually and lawfully makes the world content into our own thought-content.

Steiner never calls anything more "primitive" in any negative sense. He speaks at length about all ancient Eastern, Persian, and Western mythologies and religions, and makes clear they are all moments of an evolving, organic Unity. The inner logical necessity which applies to our daily perception-cognition within the world content around us also applies to the unfolding of human culture over epochs. Eventually, even holding on to Anthroposophical conclusions from the 20th century will become outmoded as spiritual evolution progresses. That is the pervasive temptation I discussed in the latest essay - the polar forces of over-materialization (clinging to past conceptual systems, religious or secular) and over-spiritualization (grasping for eternal knowledge not yet earned through discplined spiritual activity). The polarized material idolizes the world of sense-perception and the polarized spiritual declares it complete illusion, hallucination, etc. We find the balance through our spiritual activity which is always mediating between perception and meaning. When we remain concretely tied to that activity via qualitative thinking, the inner logic harmonizes the polar relation. This is where all other world-conceptions I have come across fall short. Many recognize the problem of abstraction and duality, but they have no concrete way to address it in our experience, because Thinking (Spirit) and its Logos structure is left in the blind spot.


"To be free is to be capable of thinking one's own thoughts - not the thoughts merely of the body, or of society, but thoughts generated by one's deepest, most original, most essential and spiritual self, one's individuality." - Steiner

[AshvinP]

I've just finished reading two treatises by French traditionalist René Guénon on the metaphysical doctrine of the Vedas: Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, and The Multiple States of the Being.
These books are pure metaphysics, without any religious undertones (also explaining that anything religious is just an inferior and necessarily limited conceptuation of the metaphysical). They were quite hard reads (let's just say Guénon is not very prone to writing concisely), but I found them very interesting and very much in line with what is frequently discussed here.
Cleric and Ashvin, you frequently state that traditional forms of metaphysics were limited in scope due to - if I'm not mistaken - the metamorphosis the World Content and human Thinking. However, based on these treatises, I find them anything but limited. In fact I found in it many of the concepts you frequently talk about, albeit conceptuated slightly differently.
The difference, however, is what is set as the end goal of metaphysical development and realisation. If I understand correctly, in Steiner's philosophy, the metaphysical composition of Being changes as we (and probably other beings) develop, and a metamorphosis takes place, with ever increasing degrees of meaning being realised. In Vedanta metaphysics, this is taken into account, but not as the end goal, simply the probable (but not strictly necessary) means of total realisation; total realisation being the fully unconditioned state carrying within itself the potential of the infinitude of possible states. This is what the Vedas call Moksha, and treat as - literally - infinitely superior to anything below it, since it contains within itself as potential every degree and form of being (and non-being). It renders every manifested reality illusory, since it contains all (the infinitude) of them. And it is said that this is the ultimate fate of every individual being and every path, the zero point to which everything always returns.
I have to say as far as I see it this is not some "more primitive" conception of metaphysics and spiritual development than the Steinerian one; on the contrary, it includes and transcends the latter. What is your opinion on this?

Related to the above, there's also another mental habit we need to pay attention to, which I am noticing more on the forum lately. It is the habit of declaring the world of objects "concrete" and the world of inner experience, our own thinking-willing-feeling, more "abstract". So when we say to move away from pure abstraction, some people think all this talk about "thinking" and "meaning" is abstraction. The world of perception is considered objective by the intellect while the world of meaning is "subjective". It is easy enough for us to state "mind before matter, inner before outer, meaning before perception" as an abstract proposition in our idealist metaphysical theory. To feel like the poles are volume dials on the radio which our rational intellect can turn up or down at its pleasure. The real test comes when we broaden out from isolated spatial perceptions to temporal collective perceptions, like conceptual systems, nations, epochs, human history as a whole. Then we almost always lapse back into perception before meaning, outer form before inner ideal. That is one sure way of telling "nondual" is completely abstract concept for us rather than living reality.

[Hedge90]

Ashvin,

there's nothing abstract about this. We have records of several jivanmuktas, who were said to have realised this absolute state in life. The question is, whether you claim that the state these sages achieved is inferior or at least different to the state one can realise today. The critique you frequently pose against ancient forms and mysticism is that these only concentrate on the passive aspect of spiritual activity, leaving out the active aspect. But my understanding from these texts is that the ancient Hindus were fully aware of this, and in fact Guénon himself makes a clear distinction between the states achievable via mystical activities, which cannot extend beyond a so-called "passive Union", and absolute realisation (which the jivanmukta is said to have achieved), which means total Union, i.e. omniscience and omnimpotence, in the form that one realises that all the possible states of being are his possible states. That's why the jivanmukta says, when asked what his secret is: "I don't care what happens". Because from his perspective, everything happens (or rather, everything is possible) at the same time. Which is, by the way, also what Bernardo thinks the "goal" of MAL is: to realise its full potential, i.e. fully know itself.
Do you understand why, if we can trust the claims of these ancient sages, it renders any particular form, state or metamorphosis redundant? Of course it's understood that the very, very vast majority of people will only reach this point through several reincarnations, so from a practical POV, the metamorphosis approach can be useful. But only as a crutch, since the end goal includes every possible metamorphosis.
At least that's how I see it.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

there's nothing abstract about this. We have records of several jivanmuktas, who were said to have realised this absolute state in life. The question is, whether you claim that the state these sages achieved is inferior or at least different to the state one can realise today. The critique you frequently pose against ancient forms and mysticism is that these only concentrate on the passive aspect of spiritual activity, leaving out the active aspect. But my understanding from these texts is that the ancient Hindus were fully aware of this, and in fact Guénon himself makes a clear distinction between the states achievable via mystical activities, which cannot extend beyond a so-called "passive Union", and absolute realisation (which the jivanmukta is said to have achieved), which means total Union, i.e. omniscience and omnimpotence, in the form that one realises that all the possible states of being are his possible states. That's why the jivanmukta says, when asked what his secret is: "I don't care what happens". Because from his perspective, everything happens (or rather, everything is possible) at the same time. Which is, by the way, also what Bernardo thinks the "goal" of MAL is: to realise its full potential, i.e. fully know itself.
Do you understand why, if we can trust the claims of these ancient sages, it renders any particular form, state or metamorphosis redundant? Of course it's understood that the very, very vast majority of people will only reach this point through several reincarnations, so from a practical POV, the metamorphosis approach can be useful. But only as a crutch, since the end goal includes every possible metamorphosis.
At least that's how I see it.

Hedge,

First, consider what we really mean by "abstract" as a criticism. It's not about spiritual visions at all. It's about the living context of the meaningful ideas we discern by thinking. Do we experience these ideas as something substantial in our lives? Do our ideas permeate the world around us and allow us to make concrete connections between outer phenomena and ourselves? Can we sense the differentiated gradient between the mineral, plant, animal kingdoms and our own? If someone says to us, "that is just an idea you have", can we respond with Goethe, "if that is an idea, then I perceive ideas with my eyes!"?

Keep in mind, I am not claiming ideas are completely alive for me. The first step to bringing them to life is recognizing they are mostly dead in our own intellectual thoughts, and therefore are in need of a new life. With intellectual reasoning, they can only come to life but so much. That is why developing Imaginative cognition should eventually become a priority. A reasoned conceptual foundation is very important, but it's only useful in so far as it is also leading us to something higher than itself. These reasoned concepts are symbols for higher spiritual realms and we are robbing them of their symbolic potential if we don't eventually go to where they are pointing us.

Secondly, the claim of attaining "omniscience or omnimpotence", or not caring what happens because one is aware of all that happens, is a sure sign of deceptive mysticism. If one were to actually attain to such a state, they would know the answers to all riddles of the Cosmos. Not in a vague mystical way, but precisely what forces weave together our complex experience on the physical plane. They would be able to know what desires, feelings, thoughts were weaving through everyone around them and from where they originate. Higher cognition stimulates to care even more what happens and to realize just how little our own thought-forms are in comparison to higher spiritual forces, let alone the Godhead. No one has attained to perfect union with the latter, not even close.

These modern mystics have simply reached the boundary of their own intellectual ego and confused that for the outer reaches of the spiritual Cosmos itself. They can't go further because they have dissociated themselves from their own thinking activity and therefore the depth structure still existing 'behind' them has been made invisible rather than transparent. This was, in fact, the highest stage of being attainable for ancient sages prior to 2000 years ago, at least apart from relatively few initiates of the mysteries, but it is not anymore. That is what I understand from my own careful reasoning and Cleric's numerous posts on the topic here. I have no doubt these mystics have experienced more Oneness than I myself have, but I also do not desire to reach a state that would take me in the direction of egoic declaration that I have become omnipotent and omniscient.

[Ben Iscatus]

These reasoned concepts are symbols for higher spiritual realms

Ash, I don't understand why higher spiritual realms are not, in your view, abstractions.

[Hedge90]

Secondly, the claim of attaining "omniscience or omnimpotence", or not caring what happens because one is aware of all that happens, is a sure sign of deceptive mysticism. If one were to actually attain to such a state, they would know the answers to all riddles of the Cosmos. Not in a vague mystical way, but precisely what forces weave together our complex experience on the physical plane. They would be able to know what desires, feelings, thoughts were weaving through everyone around them and from where they originate.

Yes, I think this is a key statement. The problem is, we don't have anyone who could claim to be jivanmukta alive today to check this. Obviously, anyone who is incapable of giving proof of having attained, if not omnipotence, then at least incredibly superhuman abilities and knowledge, can be disregarded.

[AshvinP]

These reasoned concepts are symbols for higher spiritual realms

Ash, I don't understand why higher spiritual realms are not, in your view, abstractions.

They can be. It all depends on us, how we use them. Abstractions are not by themselves bad things. Spatial dimension itself is an abstraction. It's like the saying, "guns don't kill people, people using guns kill people." It all depends on how we wield the abstractions. What practical function do they serve in our worldview, where are they pointing our attention? Most importantly, are we coming to know the deeper layers of meaning underlying them? These are questions the intellect must continue asking itself to avoid idolizing abstractions. My concepts of higher spiritual realms are certainly abstractions, and therefore I must guard against them taking the place of genuine interest in seeking out the concrete, supersensible meaning which gives them life in my thought.

[AshvinP]

Secondly, the claim of attaining "omniscience or omnimpotence", or not caring what happens because one is aware of all that happens, is a sure sign of deceptive mysticism. If one were to actually attain to such a state, they would know the answers to all riddles of the Cosmos. Not in a vague mystical way, but precisely what forces weave together our complex experience on the physical plane. They would be able to know what desires, feelings, thoughts were weaving through everyone around them and from where they originate. Higher cognition stimulates to care even more what happens and to realize just how little our own thought-forms are in comparison to higher spiritual forces, let alone the Godhead. No one has attained to perfect union with the latter, not even close.

Just to clarify, when I say "care more", I don't mean obsessing about the expected results of what we do. A certain surrender to higher spiritual forces, higher Wisdom, is necessary there. I only mean caring more about the reasons why the Cosmos unfolds and metamorphoses the way it does, and what we can do to participate. Once we know what can be done, we do it without obsessing over the results.

[AshvinP]

Secondly, the claim of attaining "omniscience or omnimpotence", or not caring what happens because one is aware of all that happens, is a sure sign of deceptive mysticism. If one were to actually attain to such a state, they would know the answers to all riddles of the Cosmos. Not in a vague mystical way, but precisely what forces weave together our complex experience on the physical plane. They would be able to know what desires, feelings, thoughts were weaving through everyone around them and from where they originate.

Yes, I think this is a key statement. The problem is, we don't have anyone who could claim to be jivanmukta alive today to check this. Obviously, anyone who is incapable of giving proof of having attained, if not omnipotence, then at least incredibly superhuman abilities and knowledge, can be disregarded.

We really don't have proof for many things we hold as reasoned conclusions. I have no proof there are planets out there apart from Earth which orbit the Sun in a mathematically precise manner, but I can still reason to that conclusion and hold it with certain degree of confidence. So that is not the reason why I dismiss the claims to omnipotence. I am not looking for someone's testimony to corroborate these things. If I had to wait to experientially verify everything by myself or via someone else, then there are very few things I could hold as even tentative conclusions. Instead, I am looking for how well they fit within the entire constellation of my logically reasoned conclusions. Do they make my experiences and conclusions more harmonious or less harmonious?

A huge part of making ideas more concrete is learning to trust in our logical reasoning when we employ it in good faith. If reality is essentially unified, then my logically reasoned conclusions should be harmonious with each other. If they are not, then I must look carefully at my own starting assumptions and my reasoning process. Reality itself will not deceive me, so the fault can only lie within my own reasoning. The mystical claims you mention make the constellation of my reasoned conclusions much less harmonious. It introduces all sorts of discontinuities which cannot be reconciled. For ex., it would demolish my reasoned understanding of spiritual (cognitive) evolution and that is one of the most solid foundations I have reasoned to. It's not about whether I can "prove" any of these things, but whether they harmonize my ideas reasoned from observation.