Biography
(1, 2)
Frithjof Schuon is
best known as the foremost spokesman of the religio perennis and as
a philosopher in the metaphysical current of Shankara and Plato. Over the
past 50 years, he has written more than 20 books on metaphysical,
spiritual and ethnic themes as well as having been a regular contributor
to journals on comparative religion in both Europe and America. Schuon's
writings have been consistently featured and reviewed in a wide range of
scholarly and philosophical publications around the world, respected by
both scholars and spiritual authorities.
Schuon was born in
1907 in Basle, Switzerland, of German parents. As a youth, he went to
Paris, where he studied for a few years before undertaking a number of
trips to North Africa, the Near East and India in order to contact
spiritual authorities and witness traditional cultures. Following World
War II, he accepted an invitation to travel to the American West, where he
lived for several months among the Plains Indians, in whom he has always
had a deep interest. Having received his education in France, Schuon has
written all his major works in French, which began to appear in English
translation in 1953. Of his first book, The Transcendent Unity of
Religions (London, Faber & Faber) T.S. Eliot wrote: "I have
met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and
Occidental religion."
The traditionalist
or "perennialist" perspective began to be enunciated in the West
at the beginning of the twentieth century by the French philosopher Rene
Guenon and by the Orientalist and Harvard professor Ananda Coomaraswamy.
Fundamentally, this doctrine is the Sanatana Dharma--the
"eternal religion"--of Hindu Vedantists. It was formulated by
Plato, by Meister Eckhart in the Christian world, and is also to be found
in Islam with Sufism. Every religion has, besides its literal meaning, an
esoteric dimension, which is essential, primordial and universal. This
intellectual universality is one of the hallmarks of Schuon's works, and
it gives rise to many fascinating insights into not only the various
spiritual traditions, but also history, science and art.
The dominant theme
or principle of Schuon's
writings was foreshadowed in his early encounter with a Black
marabout who had accompanied some members of his Senegalese village to
Switzerland in order to demonstrate their culture. When the young Schuon
talked with him, the venerable old man drew a circle with radii on the
ground and explained: "God is in the center, all paths lead to
Him."
Used with
permission of World Wisdom Books
"He feeds my
soul ... as does no other living religious writer."--Huston Smith,
author of The World's Religions
(1,
2)
