The Exo-Esoteric Symbiosis

Sufism: Veil and Quintessence|

In this dialogue with Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi, Dr Laude shares with us some of his insights and wisdom on the teachings of Frithjof Schuon. He discusses chapter (2) of Schuon’s work Sufism: Veil and Quintessence; The Exo-Esoteric Symbiosis.

“The fact that the boundary between the supernatural and the natural is not always precise explains the diversity and inequality of Sufic, Shiite, and Rabbinical speculations; one has the impression with many of these speculations that it is not a question of liberating oneself from cosmic Māyā, but on the contrary of entrenching oneself more deeply in it, of plunging into a religious mythology with piety and ingenuity but without the desire to escape from it. Thus the notion of esoterism is rather precarious in the Semitic monotheistic world, although it is precisely in this world that it is the most necessary; indeed all too often it conveys either an exoterism that is simultaneously severe and refined or else an esoterism that is both fragmentary and vulgarized, hence exoterized. “If thou wouldst reach the kernel, thou must break the shell”: this maxim, which is as dangerous as it is true, runs the risk of remaining a dead letter in an esoterism conventionally entrenched in dogmatic theology and denominational “mythology”.”

“It follows from these considerations that God is the same for all the religions only in the divine “stratosphere”, not in the human “atmosphere”; in this “atmosphere” each religion has its own God for all practical purposes, and there are as many Gods as there are religions. In this sense it could be said that esoterism alone is absolutely monotheistic, it alone recognizing only one religion under diverse forms. For if it is true that the form “is” in a certain manner the essence, the essence on the contrary is in no way the form; the drop is water, but water is not the drop.”