Sophia Perennis
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[edit] Main Arguments
According to some scholar and writers called Traditionalists or Perennialists Sophia Perennis or Eternal wisdom that is the same in all authentic religions and metaphysics. It is called as Sanatana Dharma by the Hindu, Eternal Christ by the Christian, Hikmet-i Khalidiyye by the Muslim etc. This or similar terms were mostly used by mystics in various religions.
According to the Perennialist authors this eternal wisdom was known by all indigenious groups and antic civilisations but was forgotten in modern civilisations because the modern people had chosen the scientific and rational knowledge instead of the intellectual intuition or wisdom coming from the eternality. He has lost through the ages his intellectual intuition and capacity to perceive this wisdom that is the same in all authentic traditions.
[edit] Problematic of "Metaphysical Truth"
The "Truth" is only one and unique in all religions and that idea is understandable for the religion is a liberal and pluralist man made structures. For this reason every religion especially middleast religions refuse to accept being true another religion. Jesus for example is only one represantation (Avatar for Indian metaphysical thinking) of God, Jewish prophets is the same for the Jew and Mohammad is only one valid prophet to follow his doctrine and practise for the Moslem. As we know that this idea is controversial for the religious circles.
[edit] Sophia In Religions
Perennialist or Traditionalist writers insist on being perennial and essential wisdom which was and always is eternal, in all authentic, archaic and orthodox religions. This idea wasn't widespread but there was still in some of the God-man's mind and doctrines but to be honest this idea is problematic for the most of theologians of our age.
[edit] Sophia Perennis in Hinduism
Sri Ramakrishna : (From the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna) "I have practised", said he, "all religions" -Hinduism, Islam, Christianity- and I have also followed the paths of the different Hindu sects. I have found that it is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different paths. You must try all beliefs and traverse all the different ways once. Wherever I look, I see men quarreling in the name of religion -Hindus, Mohammedans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest. But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well- the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several ghats. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it 'jal'; at another the Mussulmans take water in leather bags and call it 'pani'. At a third the Christians call it 'water'. Can we imagine that it is not 'jal', but only 'pani'or 'water'? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him"
"Toward the end of 1886 he began to practise the disciplines of Islam. Under the direction of his Mussulman guru he abandoned himself to his new sadhana. He dressed as a Mussulman and repeated the name of Allah. His prayers took the form of the Islamic devotions......Thus he realized the Mussalman God. Thence he passed into communion with Brahman. The mighty river of Islam also led him back to the Ocean of the Absolute."
"Sri Ramakrishna accepted the divinity of Buddha....He also showed great respect for the Tirthankaras, who founded Jainism and for the ten Gurus of Sikhism."
Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi MahaSwamiji: "All religions have one common ideal, worship of the Lord, and all of them proclaim that there is but one God. This one God accepts your devotion irrespective of the manner of your worship, whether it is according to this or that religion. So there is no need to abandon the religion of your birth and embrace another. The temple, the church, the mosque, the vihara may be different from one another. The idol or the symbol in them may not also be the same and the rites performed in them may be different. But the Paramatman who wants to grace the worshipper, whatever be his faith, is the same. The different religions have taken shape according to the customs peculiar to the countries in which they originated and according to the differences in the mental outlook of the people inhabiting them. The goal of all religions is to lead people to the same Paramatman according to the different attributes of the devotees concerned. So there is no need for people to change over to another faith. Converts demean not only the religion of their birth but also the one to which they convert. Indeed they do demean God."
[edit] Sophia Perennis In Christianity
St. Augustinus : “The very thing that is now called the Christian religion was not wanting among the ancients from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in the flesh, after which the true religion, which had already existed, began to be called ‘Christian.’"
St Justin stated: “God is the Word of whom the whole human race are partakers, and those who lived according to Reason are Christians even though accounted atheists.”
St.Clement of Alexandria : "It is He who also gave philosophy to the Greeks by means of the inferior angels. For by an ancient and divine order the angels are distributed among the nations....Eternity, for instance, presents in an instant the future and the present, also the past of time. But truth, much more powerful than limitless duration, can collect its proper germs, though they have fallen on foreign soil. For we shall find that very many of the dogmas that are held by such sects as have not become utterly senseless, and are not cut out from the order of nature" (Stromata)
"Since, therefore, truth is one (for falsehood has ten thousand by paths); just as the Bacchantes tore asunder the limbs of Pentheus, so the sects both of barbarian and Hellenic philosophy have done with truth, and each vaunts as the whole truth the portion which has fallen to its lot. But all, in my opinion, are illuminated by the dawn of Light."
[edit] Sophia Perennis In Islam
Sufi Niffari :"My exoteric revelation does not support My esoteric revelation."
Muhyiddin Ibn al-Arabi : "All the revealed religions are lights"
Emir Abd al-qadir "So every worshipper of a form, be it sun, star, fire, light, darkness, nature, idol, phantasm, jinn, or other, maintains that the form he worships is of Him Meant by Worship, and he ascribes the attributes of the Deity (al-Ilah) to it, of harm, benefit, and so on. Such a person would be right, in a way, if only he had not made Him finite and conditional. For no worshipper intends by adoring the form he worships anything except the Reality Deserving Worship, which is Allah Most High, and this is what Allah has ruled (Qur'an 17:23) and brought about."
Seyyed Hossein Nasr : "All religions are seen as representatives (in different climes and languages) of the doctrine (of at-tauhid - the doctrine of unity)"
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
- Philosophia Perennis and the Sensus Catholicus
- Christian Classics
- Knowledge and Sacred
- The Unity of Religions
