Love and Union
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© Estate of Frithjof Schuon
c/o World Wisdom Books
P.O. Box 2682 Bloomington IN 47402
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As Plato sometimes speaks of the divine love, it arises not out of
indigency, as created love does, but out of fulness and redundancy; it
is an overflowing fountain, and that love which descends upon created
being is a free efflux from the almighty source of love; and it is
well pleasing to him that those creatures which he hath made should
partake of it.
-John Smith
Many are the means described
for the attainment of the highest good, such as love, performance of
duty, self-control, truthfulness, sacrifices, gifts, austerity, charity,
vows, observance of moral precepts. I could name more. But of all I
could name, verily love is the highest: love and devition that make one
forgetful of everything else, love that unites the lover with me. What
ineffable joy does one find through love of me, the blissful Self! Once
that joy is realized, all earthly pleasures fade into nothingness.
-Srimad Bhagavatam
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Majestic castle hovering over the dale,
Impervious to changes born of the womb of time,
Witness to all those pages of history,
To the cross and the crescent, to their peace and conflicts.
Many a knight has beheld the sight of thy gates
And many a king has dwelt within thy mighty walls.
Even now as before, those walls veil the queen
Who resides within that majestic castle supreme.
Whose beauty bestows light upon the eyes.
I have traveled long to behold her sight
And in her embrace to forget the woes of life
To experience the union which alone wholeness brings.
The majestic castle resides also within
For the heart is the castle of the inner man.
As the holy saying has uttered so forcefully,
'To enter this castle is to be protected, safe,
From all the pain, the suffering of the world of time.'*
To gain the embrace of the beloved dwelling therein
Is to attain that peace that all of life does seek.
O fair queen of the majestic castle, hear,
In thy embrace is union to be felt,
And thy presence the supreme Beloved reflects.
Queen of the castle of my heart as well,
In entering thy castle, into my heart I draw.
In beholding thee, I the supreme Beloved behold.
The traveller has come from afar and does need
Thy welcoming embrace to his final home of rest.
A single glimpse of thy face is reward indeed
for all the hardships of the journey endured.
Grant me a single moment in thy arms
In the castle wherein is to be found
The Center from which all life issues forth,
To which all the impulses of the soul return.
The single moment in the majestic castle is
The goal, the end, the purpose of my life
Fulfilled in that bi-unity human and divine,
In the union with the Beloved, bestower of life and death.
-Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Conceived in Siguenza, Spain, on September 6, 1986
Written in Washington, DC, on November 2, 1986 |
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Seyyed Hossein Nasr selections are from Poems of the Way,
published in 1999 by the Foundation for Traditional Studies. |
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