all bait aside is this guy good to learn about eastern tradition? looking over the recent buddhist threads im not entirely sure anymore. I was thinking about picking Intro. to Hindu Doctrines and from there maybe book up a original text with his other hindu studies book?
>serious replies pls
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no
yes
why? pls no troll response
he is a larper just pick up the primary texts
bump
how would i understand them as a ignorant westerner?
How would you understand them as an ignorant easterner?
"What’s wrong with the sort of pluralism advocated by Blavatsky and the
Traditionalists is that it depends on a rather questionable reading of the texts
of the world’s religions. It requires that one hold that certain similarities in
doctrine, especially esoteric doctrine, constitute the core of the religions, and
that differences be dismissed as deviations. Blavatsky supported this
interpretation with the dubious claim that she had discovered the original
secret teachings. The Traditionalists, on the other hand, claim that through
intellectual intuition they are able to discern the common essence. The
method used is implausible. It is assumed at the outset that the religions have
a common esoteric essence, and the texts are interpreted so as to accord
with this principle. This is question begging.
The second major flaw common to most forms of religious pluralism is that
the teachings of the religions seem to be inconsistent with one another, and
with pluralism, regardless whether we examine their esoteric or exoteric
doctrines. Pluralists are forced to claim that these contradictions are either
due to corruptions in the religious traditions, or are due to inessential factors,
such as culture. This sort of claim is not supported by an examination of the
texts, but only by an a priori conviction of the truth of pluralism.
"These objections to pluralism are made by appeal to standards of good
scholarship in religious studies. More importantly, however, there are
theological grounds within Islamic teachings to reject the religious pluralism of
the Traditionalists. The problem is not merely that Islam forbids idol worship,
while idol worship is intrinsic to the non-monotheistic traditions. The problem
is where the criterion for religious truth is to be found. According to Islam that
criterion is given in God’s final revelation to man, while according to
Traditionalism it is something to be abstracted by intellectual intuition through
a comparative interpretation of the world’s esoteric religious teachings.
This theological criticism is not merely theoretical. It has practical
consequences, as well. For example, Islam presents a relatively egalitarian
social ideal in which no distinctions in religious duty are made on the basis of
social standing, occupation, color or race. There is no priesthood in Islam.
Hinduism, on the other hand, not only has a priesthood, but it is enshrined in
the caste system. Traditionalists such as Martin Lings continue to defend the
Hindu caste system as being a part of authentic tradition, rather than
condemning it on the basis of Islamic teachings.
But thanks to the caste system with the Brahmins as safeguarders of
religion we have today a Hinduism which is still living and which down
to this century has produced flowers of sanctity.11
What is essential here is to see what criterion is being used for evaluative
religious and moral judgments. Instead of making their evaluations from within
the framework or Islam, Traditionalists base their evaluations on the conceit
that they can view all of the religions from some higher transcendent
perspective.
"The flaws of esoteric religious pluralism may be summed up by listing the
following points.
Intellectual intuition, even if accepted as a valid way of obtaining
knowledge, does not support esoteric pluralism.
Esoteric differences among the religious differences are
proportionate to their exoteric differences. Common features among
religious traditions may be found by abstracting and generalizing from their
exoteric features no less than from their esoteric features.
Religious pluralists use a question-begging methodology in their
reading of religious texts.
Pluralists gloss over important differences in order to eliminate
contradictions.
Pluralism conflicts with Islamic teaching, because Islam
presents itself as the final and definitive religion for mankind and not as
culture bound, while pluralism sees the differences between Islam and
other traditions to be due to cultural accidents.
Islam offers a basically egalitarian social vision, while
Traditionalists social differences such as are found in the caste system as
manifestations of the hierarchical nature of being.
Traditionalists use tradition and the intellectual intuition of the
principles of sophia perennis as their criteria of evaluation instead of the
principles of Islam.
"Traditionalism fails in its criticism of modernity because it makes use of an
arcane methodology and ignores the details of history, it oversimplifies the
characters of both modern and traditional societies, and by making Tradition
itself the standard of its evaluations, it violates the moral principles of the
traditions it claims to champion. As an ideology, Traditionalism makes no
provision for meaningful debate about how to improve society, reform its
institutions or confront the changes that are taking place, because all
deviations from tradition, glorified as the manifestation of divine principles, is
opposed. Thus, the failings of the Traditional critique are both methodological
and theological. Despite these failures, Traditionalist ideology may serve the
useful purpose of fomenting some resistance to those who advocate
modernization, development and industrialization in imitation of the Western
model, and perhaps it is vain to hope for a more reasoned and nuanced approach to modernity. Traditionalism succeeds in pointing out many
important faults in modernity: the loss of the sacred with the rise of
secularism, the loss of intrinsic value with the rise of instrumental rationality,
the loss of art and vocation with the industrialization and automation, and the
loss of a coherent world view with the emergence of pluralism, diversification
and specialization.20 However, others have observed these faults, too. What is
valuable in the Traditionalist critique of modernity is not original, and what is
original is not valuable.
so what do you suppose i read
I'd take a good look and consider the behaviour of Guenon-posters on this board desu
what are you actually interested in?
Eastern Doctrines i guess, I just want to be able to understand metaphysics of the East and not be the cliche arrogant westerner. Hinduism seems to have gave birth to a-lot of Eastern and Western thought so I thought that would be a good area to start
this is what a guenonian looks like
en.wikipedia.org
Read pic related and ignore orientalist / trad posters
>In 2016, in a Twitter post, Carvalho peddled a falsehood about vaccination. He stated, citing an allegedly deceased doctor: "Vaccines either kill you or drive you crazy. Never vaccinate your children."[73]
Disregarding abundant evidence, he has repeated the homophobic falsehood that AIDS does not pose a risk to the heterosexual population, basing his arguments on misinterpretation of journalist Michael Fumento's book The Myth of Heterosexual Aids
based
Do you actually want to understand metaphysics? Or do you just like the aesthetic of being into the East?
If the former: start online, start investigating the various Indian schools of metaphysics (Buddhist, Jain, or the various schools of Hindu metaphysics). And maybe look beyond just India or the East. Western philosophy has thought about metaphysics very deeply. Look past boundaries like East/West and just look into all of it.
If the latter: I'm not helping you user, may as well read the traditionalist garbage then, cause you'll at least get what you want, but it's bad, you've been warned.
>start online
You can’t learn metaphysics from a book, particularly eastern metaphysics which is typically oral and taught through arts. A genuine yoga teacher (99% aren’t) is good for learning verdic knowledge, if they know tantric practices then you are lucky to find them. Tai Chi is good for Taoist practices. Meditation also comes in for most but there are many different techniques. Buddhism has shit tier metaphysics, Zen is okay (seeing as it’s influenced by Taoism) but you’d be hard pressed to find a genuine teacher of Zen arts in the west.
ty
>you can't learn metaphysics from a book
The people who haven't read books always have the shittiest, most entry-level metaphysics. They haven't examined themselves or the data enough, and they often contradict themselves.
Maybe you need a yogi or other Eastern master to learn Eastern metaphysics, but I'm highly skeptical of that. If you want to be dismissive of the metaphysics work done (historically and today) outside apprenticeship under gurus, then you're just after a certain aesthetic, and not after metaphysics.
> I was thinking about picking Intro. to Hindu Doctrines and from there maybe book up a original text with his other hindu studies book?
Yes, this is a good idea, you don't want to only limit yourself to Guenon but his books on Hinduism are indeed very good and I say this as someone who reads a lot of translated primary texts. Guenon just attacks too many sacred cows (pun unintentional) for certain subsets of people to not sperg out whenever he is mentioned. Just read him in addition to translated Hindu texts and then you can formulate your own opinion.
You have a very poor understanding of how eastern culture works. Unlike Christianity and it’s offshoots, they aren’t burdened by the death of their saviour and the need to spread his message. Most eastern teachers are unwilling to teach pupils who haven’t proven themselves and once they are accepted most of their knowledge is transferred orally. This is because they fear miss use of their techniques (google dual cultivation for an example of this). Even if you do manage to read the little that is written, without context it can be very hard to get a correct interpretation. Sandskrit/Ancient Chinese are incredibly different to Modern English (markedly more than Latin vs English) so you are relying on a bias of translator. See how many translations of Laozi for the difficulty of a seeminly simple text. Books do come into it but only have years of diligent practice in a specific arts with a genuine teacher.
>I say this as someone who reads a lot of translated primary texts
Is that supposed to make you seem like an authority? Lmao.
Why would you learn about Hindu doctrines from European Muslim convert?
This
Guenon posters are LARPers
Go to an authentic retreat ya cunt
I went to a really good one and everything I read makes much more sense now.
no
just, no
*larp mode engage* Yeah the little that is written, like this incomplete list of manuscripts from one university in north america library.upenn.edu
Hah. Typical white westerner with some hippy dippy understanding of the east. They would accept me, as I actually understand, but you just talk of WESTERN universities as if they matter.
I'm not against getting an Eastern master to teach you, really. But metaphysics is definitely something that can be put down into book form. Metaphysics, like all philosophy, draws from the content of experience and is structured by formal reasoning. So the best thing that can happen to metaphysics is make it public, so other people can engage it, offer critiques, make new observations, and progress can be made. Guru culture is a breeding ground for dogmatism. I'm not here to criticize all of the East, so I'll just say that I know for a fact that some Buddhist metaphysicians wrote books (like Ratnakirti), and that Eastern metaphysics is perfectly capable of engaging Western metaphysics in new, but traditionally-informed, ways (see: Kyoto School). Your support for guru culture just raises major red flags, it looks more like an aesthetic preference than genuine curiosity for metaphysics for its own sake.
Based and Godheadpilled
This unjustified acrimonious hatred against Guenon only depicts the pertinence of his critiques and thoughts.
You're imbued with the w*stern method of thought. Metaphysics can't be reduced to the limitations of simple concepts of language.
Metaphysics can't make any progress because it is what is, it is stable and unchanging.
I don't vouch for guru teaching. Thus, what I'd recommend is to read primary eastern texts, read about the different translations and pick the best ones, read secondary literature on them, you can't err engaging with people like Shankaracharya and Ramanuja, in Hinduism for instance.
Guenon's Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines and his other texts on Hinduism will help you to overcome all intellectual short-sightedness that is consequence of w*stern biased thought (along with punctilious thinking and introspection).
I don't know if you're OP or not, but it serves to either of them.
>he thinks metaphysics is a school of philosophy
lol what a dum dum
I stopped reading him because he believes some weird shit with no justification. He'll have you believe that everything good that came out of Greece was actually stolen from the east but he won't give you an argument.
Aside from the bad history I don't think his project is worth anything. He's trying to find authentic traditions but how are they identified? I suppose he would say that anything perennial is authentic but that's wildly subjective and a type of argumentum ad populum on top of that. He doesn't explain why he rejects some things that appear in lots of other traditions, like animal or human sacrifice. He could also say traditions are authentic if they're really old, like Hinduism but that would also be fallacious. Just because something is old doesn't mean it's true.
>This unjustified acrimonious hatred against Guenon only depicts the pertinence of his critiques and thoughts.
Is that how you tell if something is true, you see if people dislike it?
HEY user
Instead of reading Guenon, I recommend an opening book on comparative mythology. I have Guenons first two books, I have tried and tried and I will say they are just dry and a slog to get through. I used to think Evola was a terrible writer, although I can manage to say I've actually read 4 of his works.
Read one of these instead
>Jaan Puhvel, Comparative Mythology
>Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas all 4 volumes (only 1-3 are in english, learn French, German, or Spanish if you want volume 4 which is after the enlightenment)
>Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God (or anything really, his writing is easy)
Also avoid Jung for some time, as he focuses not on the spiritual but the collective mental which he confuses with the spiritual
Where exactly are you getting that from? Nobody said metaphysics is a school of philosophy.
>they hate him because he's right
That's really not what you should lean on.
>western metaphysics sucks but trust me on the guenon
Look, you want people to read Guenon and Eastern stuff that lines up with Guenon, and expect people to accept the reasoning of "don't knock it til you try it," but have you even studied Western metaphysics deeply and thoroughly, or are you just letting Guenon do the thinking for you?
Why do you have to be so dishonest?
Yes, most people who hate Guenon have relied their intellectual life exclusively on western thought and culture. Guenon's acerbic disclosure of this kind of mind is verified in most threads on him and traditionalism. You can see it here, obviously. And what is funny is that you all are always confronting us with the same poor retorts: ''but have you studied wstern metaphysics?'', ''but have you read western philosophical systems?''. In my case, and I don't doubt it is the same as for the all other people who have gone through this process of intellectual realization, yes, I have read a lot of western philosophy (chiefly what you call ''metaphysics'').
But, have you taken time to read and study eastern metaphysical doctrines deeply as you have dedicated to western ones?
What have you studied in Western metaphysics?
Unless you're studying at least some 20th and 21st century stuff you're going to be horribly outdated in the eyes of anyone who studies 20th/21st century metaphysics. Things get worse if you leave out the early modern stuff and your only knowledge is ancient, THAT stuff is even more outdated. It's not that it's not good, it's that what's good has been refined and thought about hard for years, decades, centuries, by many smart people, and what's bad wasn't thought about so hard back when it first showed up. That's normal in philosophy. I worry if you think someone like Guenon or some Easterners had it all figured out.
I've read both ancient and modern. And in all honesty, I can't think of any more due treatment of metaphysics than the apophatic one, with its prolific activity in ancient and medieval times.
> I worry if you think someone like Guenon or some Easterners had it all figured out.
What have you studied in eastern metaphysics?
well Crisis of the Modern World was actually a decent read
>Why do you have to be so dishonest?
What the hell is dishonest about the question?
He is excellent of conceptual distinction
His book on Vedanta and the symbolism of the Cross are top-tier.
People fail to understand that Guenon was critical in exposing some of the biases through which eastern thought was understood in the west. He made some concepts more understandable, and indirectly stressed the idea of cultural/language relativity.
The fact that he went in full-larp is another thing; you should take most of his work with a grain of salt. But people who deny him completely are mostly the ones who either haven't read him, or who did so but failed to understand the high stakes which Guenon thought his work was infused.
You don't have to be a guenonist to appreciate his contributions.
>how... ignorant blah blah...
You're shitting me, right? Defeatism is for the already defeated, user, try harder.
I'm halfway through Symbolism of the Cross and it's literally nothing but elaborate descriptions of coordinate geometry
So glad I only bought one Guenon book. His adherents are insufferable pseuds, who probably picked him up because of evolution and pol.
*Evola
The post I replied to, second sentence: "Metaphysics, like all philosophy..." learn 2 read retard
Metaphysics is a subfield of philosophy.
Why are you in a Guenon thread if you haven't read Guenon?
Guenon cannot redefine words. Well, he can but such is one of many reasons why intelligent conversation ignores him.
Common definitions for common people user, falling for the trap that you would've seen had you read Guenon like I did.
What do you words philosophy and metaphysics mean if they have nothing to do with each other?
I will distinguish that there is a metaphysics itself as it exists outside human philosophical conceptions but "metaphysics" the term is commonly understood as a field of human endeavor and philosophy. One might argue that it is the prima philosophia but I personally find epistemology and logic equally important as one cannot express metaphysics without it. One might also argue that some people have realized the true metaphysics but I do not believe it despite having read Guenon's wishful thinking :^)
Then you've known what I was talking about the entire time, our disagreement is only about Guenon's conclusions. Once I realize the true metaphysics I will laugh at you!
All I did was ask a question so I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.