Perennialism Advaita and Islam (and Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr)

I wrote recently about Fr. Martin C. D'Arcy and his response to Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy:
D'Arcy/Huxley

The topic seems to be pursuing me as I have again come across it in some writing by Seyyed Hossein Nasr who claims to be one as a follower of Frithjof Schuon (1907 - 1988)who was a Sufi and a Perennialist/Traditionalist. There appears to be two strains of modern perennialism one having its source in Vedanta and associated with Ananda Coomaraswamy and Aldous Huxley. It's original inspiration would be the Bengali saint, Ramakrishna and his disciple Swami Vivekananda. The other source of this many paths one goal approach are Rene Guenon and Schuon who were Sufis.

Looking first at the Vedanta which seems the more metaphysical of the two streams. It is as though they stopped at Exodus 3 – I AM THAT I AM – and took that as the sole ground of their meditation. Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi are two examples of the atma vichara (self inquiry) which is inspired by this sense of pure self-luminous being.

However when this many paths philosophy is parroted by the modern Hindu it does not require any level of knowledge about any other path. I remember an emblem of the followers of a certain guru which had on it the symbols of Buddhism (a wheel), Zoroasterianism (a flame), Christianity (a cross), Hinduism (Om sign), Islam (crescent). When the Jewish followers of this teacher reached critical mass a star of David was added. Seemingly there didn't seem to the original designers to be a difference between Judaism and Christianity. In fact the all is one attitude is an ontological charm against conversion which is the Hindu bete noir.

S.H. Nasr as a devout cradle Muslim seems a more equivocal figure. In a essay The Prophet and Prophetic Religion published in a collection The World Treasury of Modern Religious Thought ed. Jaroslav Pelikan pub. 1990; Nasr endows the ultimate prophet with the status of the perfect man:

Now a Prophet is a person whose average, overall character, the sum total of his actual conduct, is far superior to those of humanity in general. He is a man who is ab initio impatient with men and even with most of their ideals, and wishes to re-create history. Muslim orthodoxy, therefore, drew the logically correct conclusion that Prophets must be regarded as immune from serious errors (the doctrine of 'isma). Muhammad was such a person, in fact the only such person really known to history. That is why his overall behaviour is regarded by the Muslims as Sunna or the "perfect model." But, with all this, there were moments when he, as it were, "transcends himself" and his moral cognitive perception becomes so acute and so keen that his consciousness becomes identical with the moral law itself.

I have also seen Nasr on youtube telling us that there is no such word as secularism in Arabic or Persian given the perfect blend of religion and the state that is the Islamic polity. Yes, quite. Definately not the gentle Hindoo going along to get along.

Is there a core value of Perennialism that is rescuable? More anon.

Ripe and Unripe Advaita

He who thinks that liberation is something that has to be literally ‘produced’ has in mind a ‘liberation’ that would depend on action of body, speech or mind. The same is true of those who think that the soul has to undergo transformation to become the Absolute. Liberation as conceived in both these views would necessarily be impermanent. (B.S.B. I.i.4)

Nor does liberation depend on action in the form of purification (samskara). Purification is brought about through conferring some new attribute on the thing to be purified, or else removing a defect. But in the case of liberation it is not possible to confer a new attribute. For liberation is the Absolute in its true nature to which nothing can be superadded. Nor can there be purification through removal of defects. For liberation is the Absolute in its true nature, eternally pure and free from defects. (B.S.B. I.i.4)

(from The Method of Vedanta by Swami Satchidanandendraa pg.167)

Presumption is both a method and a danger in advaita. Liberation being our natural state should require no recourse to means. That’s true but as a practical balance to no scales no weights there is the procedure of adhiropa/apavada (attribution and retraction) which is a progressive elimination of false views and the view that there are no views. When Vivekananda met Ramakrishna for the first time he spouted pure advaita to the Master. ‘True enough’, he was told,’ but not for you who are still green and unripe’. (from memory)

Wisdom

Is there such a thing as wisdom. Could someone be so connatural with wisdom that everything they do and say has that virtue.

"But in all such matters that which appears to the good man is thought to be really so." (i.e. that which appears good to him) Aristotle,'Nichomachean Ethics' Bk.10.chap.V.

Wisdom and Truth can often be connatural with persons who know nothing of abstruse philosophy and ethical theory. The only explanation is that they are it. A Nisargadatta or a Ramakrishna is more impressive than a hyper educated Brahmin but of course 'it' can land anywhere.

From War and Peace:
"Oh, well, of course, folks are different. One man lives for his own wants and nothing else, like Mituh, he only thinks of filling his belly, but Fokanitch, is a righteous man. He lives for his soul. He does not forget God."
"How thinks of God? How does he live for his soul?" Levin almost shouted.
"Why, to be sure, in truth, in God's way. Folks are different. Take you now, you wouldn't wrong a man ......"
"Yes, yes, good-bye!" said Levin, breathless with excitement, and turning round he took his stick and walked quickly away towards home. At the peasant's words that Fokanitch lived for his soul, in truth, in God's way, undefined but significant ideas seemed to burst out as though they had been locked up, and all striving towards one goal, they thronged whirling through his head, blinding him with their light.