Post by giovanni on Aug 24, 2006 11:06:27 GMT
SALVATION AND DELIVERANCE
Bro. René Guénon
We recently observed, not without some astonishment, that some of our readers still experience difficulty in understanding the essential difference between salvation and Deliverance. We have however already explained our position on this question many times, and in any case this ought to pose no problem for anyone possessing the idea of the multiple states of the being and, above all, that of the fundamental distinction between the ‘ego’ and the ‘Self’. (1) It is therefore necessary to return to the subject in order to dispel definitively any possible misunderstanding and to leave no room for any objection.
In the present conditions of terrestrial humanity, it is evident that the great majority of men are wholly incapable of going beyond the limits of the individual condition, either during their lives or after leaving this world by bodily death, which in itself can change nothing about the spiritual level they possess at the moment it occurs.(2) Since this is so, exoterism in its broadest sense, that is to say the part of tradition addressed indiscriminately to all, can only offer them an end of a purely individual order, since any other would be entirely inaccessible to most of the adherents of the tradition, and it is precisely this end that constitutes salvation. It goes without saying that it is a long way from here to effective realization of a supra-individual though still conditioned state, not to mention Deliverance, which, as the achievement of the supreme and unconditioned state, truly has no common measure with any nconditioned state whatsoever. (3) We will immediately add that if ‘Paradise is a prison’ for some, as we said earlier, this is precisely because the being that, finds itself in the state to which this corresponds- that is, the being that has attained salvation-is still locked, even for an indefinite duration, in the limitations that define human individuality. This condition can only be a state of ‘privation’ for those who aspire to be freed from these limitations and whose degree of spiritual development renders them effectively capable of it even during their terrestrial life, although the others who do not themselves possess the possibility of going further can in no way feel this ‘privation’ as such.
One can thus ask the following question: even if the beings in this state are not conscious of its imperfection with respect to higher states, this imperfection nonetheless exist in reality; what advantage is there then in keeping these beings indefinitely in this state, since it is the normal result of exoteric traditional observances? The truth is that there is a very great one, for being fixed thereby in the prolongations of the human state as long as this state itself subsists in manifestation-which is equivalent to perpetuity or an indefinite time-these beings will not be able to pass on to another individual state, which otherwise would necessarily be the only possibility open to them. But once again, why in this case is the continuation of the human state more favorable than the passage to another state? Here we must interpose a consideration of the central position occupied by man in the degree of existence to which he belongs, while all other beings in this state are more or less peripheral, their specific superiority or inferiority in relation to one another resulting directly from their greater or lesser distance from the center; and this determines the different measures of their participation, which is always only partial, in the possibilities that can only be expressed completely in and by man. But, when a being must pass to another individual state, nothing guarantees that there it will again occupy a central position relative to the possibilities of that state, as it does in its present state; on the contrary, there is even an incomparably greater probability that it will encounter one of the innumerable peripheral conditions comparable in our world to those of animals or even vegetables. One can immediately understand how serious a disadvantage this would be, especially from the point of view of the possibilities for spiritual development, even if, as would be normal to suppose, this new state envisaged in its entirety constituted a degree of existence higher than ours. This is why certain oriental texts say that ‘human birth is difficult to obtain; which of course applies equally to what corresponds to it in every other individual state; and this is also the reason why exoteric doctrines portray the ‘second death’ as a formidable and even sinister eventuality, this death being the dissolution of the psychic elements by which the being ceases to belong to the human state and thereby must necessarily and immediately be born into another state. It would be wholly different and even quite the contrary if this ‘second death’ gave access to a supra-individual state; but this is no longer the province of exoterism, which can and must consider only the most general case, while the exceptions are precisely what constitute the raison d’être of esoterism. Ordinary man, who cannot attain a supra-individual state, can if he attains salvation at least reach the end of the human cycle; he will thus escape the danger we have just mentioned and so will not lose the benefit of his human birth; on the contrary, he will preserve it in a definitive way, for to say salvation is to say preservation, and it is this that is of essential importance in such a case for it is in this, but only in this, that salvation can be considered to bring the being closer to his ultimate destination, or, as improper as such a manner of speaking may be, to constitute in a certain sense progress toward Deliverance.
Moreover, one must take great care not to be led into error through certain apparent similarities of expression, for the same terms can have many meanings and be applied at very different levels according to whether it is a question of the exoteric or esoteric domain. Thus, when the mystics speak of ‘union with God; what they mean by this can certainly not be assimilated in airy way to Yoga; and this remark is particularly important because some people might perhaps be tempted to say: how can a being have a higher end than union with God? All depends on the sense in which one takes the word 'union'. In reality, the mystics, like all other exoterists, are concerned with nothing more or other than salvation, although what they have in view is, if one wishes, a higher modality of salvation, for it is inconceivable that there should not also be a hierarchy among ‘saved’ beings. In any case, since in mystical union individuality as such subsists, it can only be a wholly exterior and relative union, and it is quite evident that the mystics have never even conceived the possibility of the Supreme Identity; they stop short at ‘vision; and the entire extent of the angelic worlds still separates them from Deliverance.
Notes
(1) Another thing that, in truth, is much less surprising to us is the obstinate incomprehension of the orientalists in this regard, as in so many others. We recently saw a rather curious example of it: in a review of Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, one of them, noting with ill disguised bad humor our criticisms of his colleagues, mentions as something particularly shocking what we said about the ‘constant confusion between salvation and Deliverance’, and he appears indignant that we faulted a certain Indìanist for having translated Moksha by 'salvation' from one end of his works to the other, without seeming even to suspect the mere possibility of an inexactness in this assimilation. Obviously it is wholly inconceivable to him that Moksha could he anything other than salvation! This aside, what is truly amusing is that the author of this review ‘deplores’ the fact that we have not adopted the orientalists' transcription, even though we expressly stated our reasons for this, and also that we did not include a bibliography of works by orientalists, as if they ought to have been `authorities' far us and as if, from our point of view, we did not have the right purely and simply to ignore them. Such remarks give the correct measure of the comprehension of certain people.
(2) Many people seem to imagine that the sole fact of death can suffice to give a man intellectual or spiritual qualities that he never possessed while alive. This is a strange illusion, and we do not see what reasons could be invoked to give it the least appearance of justification.
(3) Incidentally, we will explain that if we are accustomed to begin ‘salvation' in the lower case and ‘Deliverance' with a capital, this is to mark clearly that one is of the individual order and the other of a transcendent order, just as when we write ‘ego’ and ‘Self’; This remark is meant to prevent anyone attributing to us intentions that are in no way ours, such as depreciating salvation in some way, when it is solely a matter of situating it as exactly as possible in the place that in fact belongs to it in total reality.
Bro. René Guénon
We recently observed, not without some astonishment, that some of our readers still experience difficulty in understanding the essential difference between salvation and Deliverance. We have however already explained our position on this question many times, and in any case this ought to pose no problem for anyone possessing the idea of the multiple states of the being and, above all, that of the fundamental distinction between the ‘ego’ and the ‘Self’. (1) It is therefore necessary to return to the subject in order to dispel definitively any possible misunderstanding and to leave no room for any objection.
In the present conditions of terrestrial humanity, it is evident that the great majority of men are wholly incapable of going beyond the limits of the individual condition, either during their lives or after leaving this world by bodily death, which in itself can change nothing about the spiritual level they possess at the moment it occurs.(2) Since this is so, exoterism in its broadest sense, that is to say the part of tradition addressed indiscriminately to all, can only offer them an end of a purely individual order, since any other would be entirely inaccessible to most of the adherents of the tradition, and it is precisely this end that constitutes salvation. It goes without saying that it is a long way from here to effective realization of a supra-individual though still conditioned state, not to mention Deliverance, which, as the achievement of the supreme and unconditioned state, truly has no common measure with any nconditioned state whatsoever. (3) We will immediately add that if ‘Paradise is a prison’ for some, as we said earlier, this is precisely because the being that, finds itself in the state to which this corresponds- that is, the being that has attained salvation-is still locked, even for an indefinite duration, in the limitations that define human individuality. This condition can only be a state of ‘privation’ for those who aspire to be freed from these limitations and whose degree of spiritual development renders them effectively capable of it even during their terrestrial life, although the others who do not themselves possess the possibility of going further can in no way feel this ‘privation’ as such.
One can thus ask the following question: even if the beings in this state are not conscious of its imperfection with respect to higher states, this imperfection nonetheless exist in reality; what advantage is there then in keeping these beings indefinitely in this state, since it is the normal result of exoteric traditional observances? The truth is that there is a very great one, for being fixed thereby in the prolongations of the human state as long as this state itself subsists in manifestation-which is equivalent to perpetuity or an indefinite time-these beings will not be able to pass on to another individual state, which otherwise would necessarily be the only possibility open to them. But once again, why in this case is the continuation of the human state more favorable than the passage to another state? Here we must interpose a consideration of the central position occupied by man in the degree of existence to which he belongs, while all other beings in this state are more or less peripheral, their specific superiority or inferiority in relation to one another resulting directly from their greater or lesser distance from the center; and this determines the different measures of their participation, which is always only partial, in the possibilities that can only be expressed completely in and by man. But, when a being must pass to another individual state, nothing guarantees that there it will again occupy a central position relative to the possibilities of that state, as it does in its present state; on the contrary, there is even an incomparably greater probability that it will encounter one of the innumerable peripheral conditions comparable in our world to those of animals or even vegetables. One can immediately understand how serious a disadvantage this would be, especially from the point of view of the possibilities for spiritual development, even if, as would be normal to suppose, this new state envisaged in its entirety constituted a degree of existence higher than ours. This is why certain oriental texts say that ‘human birth is difficult to obtain; which of course applies equally to what corresponds to it in every other individual state; and this is also the reason why exoteric doctrines portray the ‘second death’ as a formidable and even sinister eventuality, this death being the dissolution of the psychic elements by which the being ceases to belong to the human state and thereby must necessarily and immediately be born into another state. It would be wholly different and even quite the contrary if this ‘second death’ gave access to a supra-individual state; but this is no longer the province of exoterism, which can and must consider only the most general case, while the exceptions are precisely what constitute the raison d’être of esoterism. Ordinary man, who cannot attain a supra-individual state, can if he attains salvation at least reach the end of the human cycle; he will thus escape the danger we have just mentioned and so will not lose the benefit of his human birth; on the contrary, he will preserve it in a definitive way, for to say salvation is to say preservation, and it is this that is of essential importance in such a case for it is in this, but only in this, that salvation can be considered to bring the being closer to his ultimate destination, or, as improper as such a manner of speaking may be, to constitute in a certain sense progress toward Deliverance.
Moreover, one must take great care not to be led into error through certain apparent similarities of expression, for the same terms can have many meanings and be applied at very different levels according to whether it is a question of the exoteric or esoteric domain. Thus, when the mystics speak of ‘union with God; what they mean by this can certainly not be assimilated in airy way to Yoga; and this remark is particularly important because some people might perhaps be tempted to say: how can a being have a higher end than union with God? All depends on the sense in which one takes the word 'union'. In reality, the mystics, like all other exoterists, are concerned with nothing more or other than salvation, although what they have in view is, if one wishes, a higher modality of salvation, for it is inconceivable that there should not also be a hierarchy among ‘saved’ beings. In any case, since in mystical union individuality as such subsists, it can only be a wholly exterior and relative union, and it is quite evident that the mystics have never even conceived the possibility of the Supreme Identity; they stop short at ‘vision; and the entire extent of the angelic worlds still separates them from Deliverance.
Notes
(1) Another thing that, in truth, is much less surprising to us is the obstinate incomprehension of the orientalists in this regard, as in so many others. We recently saw a rather curious example of it: in a review of Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, one of them, noting with ill disguised bad humor our criticisms of his colleagues, mentions as something particularly shocking what we said about the ‘constant confusion between salvation and Deliverance’, and he appears indignant that we faulted a certain Indìanist for having translated Moksha by 'salvation' from one end of his works to the other, without seeming even to suspect the mere possibility of an inexactness in this assimilation. Obviously it is wholly inconceivable to him that Moksha could he anything other than salvation! This aside, what is truly amusing is that the author of this review ‘deplores’ the fact that we have not adopted the orientalists' transcription, even though we expressly stated our reasons for this, and also that we did not include a bibliography of works by orientalists, as if they ought to have been `authorities' far us and as if, from our point of view, we did not have the right purely and simply to ignore them. Such remarks give the correct measure of the comprehension of certain people.
(2) Many people seem to imagine that the sole fact of death can suffice to give a man intellectual or spiritual qualities that he never possessed while alive. This is a strange illusion, and we do not see what reasons could be invoked to give it the least appearance of justification.
(3) Incidentally, we will explain that if we are accustomed to begin ‘salvation' in the lower case and ‘Deliverance' with a capital, this is to mark clearly that one is of the individual order and the other of a transcendent order, just as when we write ‘ego’ and ‘Self’; This remark is meant to prevent anyone attributing to us intentions that are in no way ours, such as depreciating salvation in some way, when it is solely a matter of situating it as exactly as possible in the place that in fact belongs to it in total reality.