/lit/ - Literature

>>12475263
based guenon

>>12475263
>Do I have to be initiated before I can read Guenon's metaphysics?

No, and it's not really 'his' he mostly just points out how some of the more prominent currents of eastern thought and their popular sub-schools all mostly align on a number of points. There is a discernible current of non-dualism running through Vedanta, Tantra, Mahayana, Zen, Vajrayana, Sikhism, Ayyavazhi, Sufism, Daoism etc which changes each time in such a way that each type has its own idiosyncrasies and exterior forms but is still easy to recognize as such. Some people have a bone to pick with him and claim that he is 'neoplatonizing' or 'vedantizing' eastern thought but it remains true that many many many eastern schools teach something hewing closely to non-dualism.

When he talks about 'initiation' he actually means seeking the close instruction of a spiritual master and basically offering oneself up as a disciple to be personally molded and instructed by them in the proper teachings, he isn't merely referring to the act of joining something like being baptized or the shahada. Neither of these are required to understand his books although in his view for most people the former option is the only realistic choice if you actually want to attain genuine enlightement/moksha/the perfect man etc.

you can read his books right away and get a lot out of them, especially his social critiques which were the main reason for his fame in the '20s and '30s, but you should be philosophically well-rounded and try to learn about the history of theosophy and neo-vedanta as much as possible before taking his metaphysical and historical assessments of the primordial "tradition" at face value. he's very fascinating but like >>12475827 says he is basically applying a modern western neoplatonist orientalist framework to le exotic orient, very common in his generation.

if you really want an unbiased assessment of guenon i recommend you learn about the history of western orientalism and occultism, and also learn about the revival of advaita vedanta in india and the influence of theosophists on indian thought. read a good balance of accounts on vivekananda and radhakrishnan, and about the thesophists. mark sedgwick's books on traditionalism may be helpful and are generally accurate but he certainly has an agenda. schwabs oriental renaissance is dense but helpful. joscelyn godwin writes on theosophy but is friendly to it i believe.. more critical accounts exist but are often biased in the other direction.

just don't become a man of one book. traditionalists seem to have a lot of mystique until you meet them in real life and realize they are very closed-minded, it's very much a cult even if it's sometimes benign. as with all cults there are sincere people and there some real bad fucking people too, psychopaths who naturally drift toward anything that will let them brainwash others.

Guenon is strongest when it comes to critiques of modernity. His metaphysics I'm skeptical of but it's more interesting than whatever Heidegger and his neo-liberal descendents have been doing in academia since the end of WWII.

>>12475263
nice eastern hogwash

>>12475263
fun fact: in French, guenon means female monkey.

>>12475857
lol, this guy is the perfect example of what I meant in that post

>>12475263
Guenon's gay as fuck. You can get all the good stuff from him without the "muh ancient perennial wisdom" pretension by reading Jung and the Gnostics.

>>12476096
Jung and the Gnostics are incredibly pretentious however and still LARP the muh ancient perennial wisdom.

>>12476096
cringe

>>12475263
Initiated into what? There are no legitimate "mystery schools" in which to be initiated in this current age. Easy access to nearly every manuscript ever written pertaining to the schools of initiation is the trade-off we have. Literally just keep reading until your head is about to explode and take a weekend retreat.
>>12476057
>>12476096
>>12476159
People of this facetious or otherwise hypercynical disposition have no place among the transcendent wisdom crowd.

>>12476223
Not them but as a spiritual seeker I find this notion of needing "initiation" as so corny. From the outside, it seems like another show of ego, creating clubs of exclusivity to which spirituality is now pamphletized and thereby dishonored.

I know that it's an ancient tradition, but I think spirituality should be available to everyone, and don't see the point of such formalisms.

>>12477054
search woodman anal initiation, that's what life's about.

>>12477054
what the fuck are you doing in a tradition thread

>>12477054
This. Initiation doesn't require a creepy BDSM master, or creepy secret clubs. Christianity had lone ascetics and monasteries while the East was justifying servile, pathetic behavior as usual. For the East, obedience and slavery is always good. God is just the highest slavemaster.

If you want to see what most of your heroic wise benevolent gurus looked like throughout history, go look at the endless proliferation of cults in "new age" California since the 60s.

>>12475263
>I'm an enlightened brahmin, everyone else is just a stupid pleb
Whatever you say René

>>12477119
I detect a sarcasm, which I can't seem to unravel. What are you stating here? My above comment was not remarking either of Eastern or Western conceptions of spirituality, merely the notions of "initiation rituals". You seem to be purposely inverting the practises of Western spiritualism with the Eastern ones, and I ask you of why you have done so, and what you're trying to communicate by doing so.

>>12477054
Unironically read manly p hall about the value of initiation

>>12477185
Do you mind listing a few arguments for me, as someone who presently dislikes the notion of initiation?

>>12477054
>>12476223
how does one get initiated actually?

>>12477703
By reading Plato's Parmenides and figuring out some kind of consistent explanation of the "One" as something that is.
Just ignore any Aristotelian-derived philosophy.

>>12475263
No

>>12477703
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diksha

Guenon was a mason so he would probably consider masonic initiation as equal.

>>12477054
From what I can tell, initiation is the outward manifestation of the acceptance that your life is no longer about yourself, and that you now give yourself over to a higher purpose (whether thats your guru or Allah or the truth or whatever else.)

I was watching a documentary of a Jain girl in India who wished to become a nun (meaning she would give up all worldly pursuits and desires), and on the morning of her ceremony her mother was basically acting as if her daughter was about to die. Because, I think, it's true in a sense, initiation to me signifies a sort of spiritual death and rebirth, where you've made the mental decision to dedicate your life to whatever it is, and now physically represent that through your thoughts and deeds.

>>12477054
This is the reason Guenon didn't like Buddhism because parts of it doesn't fit that mindset. Pratyekabuddhas, Enlightenment in Bardo of Dharmata, Buddha Nature, Enlightenment through seeing dependent origination etc. are like thorns to that mindset which which doesn't accept anything but transcendence through through magical touch of a guru.

>>12476057
Based Vargposter

>>12479249
That's wrong kiddo, stuff like Buddha-nature actually aligns very well with the sort of stuff Guenon was into, the reason he initially had a bone to pick with Buddhism is that in the 6th-8th century Buddhism in India had gone full retard and introduced all a bunch of retarded concepts that Shankaracharya rightfully btfos and refutes in his writings, but in fact many of these ideas did not originate with Buddha but from various yogacara figures like Dharmakīrti.

When Guenon eventually began to study later schools of Mahayana, particularly those that had been influenced by Shaivism, Tantra and Daoism (e.g. much of Tibetian and Chan) he took back what he earlier said and wrote that some of these schools had legitimate teachings but that there had just been a degenerated form of it in India at the time that Shankaracharya was writing about it. I screen-capped this from some thread a long time ago where some Indian guy seems to have been summarizing his points, he says 'Buddhism' generally but in fact later schools disagree on many of these points and in fact a good amount of them take different positions more in line with Shankaracharya.

That's wrong kiddo, stuff like Buddha-nature actually aligns very well with the sort of stuff Guenon was into, the reason he initially had a bone to pick with Buddhism is that in the 6th-8th century Buddhism in India had gone full retard and introduced all a bunch of retarded concepts that Shankaracharya rightfully btfos and refutes in his writings, but in fact many of these ideas did not originate with Buddha but from various yogacara figures like Dharmakīrti.

When Guenon eventually began to study later schools of Mahayana, particularly those that had been influenced by Shaivism, Tantra and Daoism (e.g. much of Tibetian and Chan) he took back what he earlier said and wrote that some of these schools had legitimate teachings but that there had just been a degenerated form of it in India at the time that Shankaracharya was writing about it. Some guy posted this image in a thread a long time ago summarizing his points, he says 'Buddhism' generally but in fact later schools disagree on many of these points and in fact a good amount of them take different positions more in line with Shankaracharya.

>>12479249
meant to quote you here >>12479336

>>12476223
the """""the transcendent wisdom crowd""""" doesn't even belong on this board

GO BACK TO /X/ YOU FAGGOT

>>12475263
Such a tiny forehead.

>>12476223
>books
you can only be initiated by direct oral transmission

>>12477054
you are just a "just be yourself" liberal, that's ok, most people are nowadays

>>12479359
like 1/4-1/3 of the western philosophers that /lit/ obsesses over talk about the same shit you brainlet

>>12479427
only if you are retarded

>>12479411
Nah, I just think spirituality shouldn't be commodified and privatized, and that the world would be better if everyone were spiritually-oriented rather than just a few.

>>12479445
sounds like spiritual liberalism to me

>>12479437
>whoa dude what if like "Being" is hella important *hits bong*

>>12479437
>whoa man what if like everything's One man, moms gunna freak!

>>12479437
*scribbles Hermetic references in diary*
>what if like, we're just spirit coming to know itself, fucking rad man

>>12479461
intoxicants are haram

>>12479336
>pic
both strawman and retardation btfo'd numerous times in these threads already.
Guenonfags shouldn't like Buddha Nature because it implies possibility of Enlightenment without guru.
>guenon
btfo'd here
>>12475857

>>12479450
>elitism feels endangered, so it's time for /pol/ boogeyman

>>12475857
Theosophists seem so cringe, bros. Why do they taint otherwise sound doctrines with their autismo and ego?

>>12479406
Why does everything with you lead to sucking some Kang off? You know you have to eat their shit to get the good stuff eh? Full buttmunch a la Pynch.

>>12477893
what do you mean? adhering to a neo-platonist interpretation of the parmenides?

>>12479564
because they took all the steps towards enlightenment and discovered that the people there before them have chained them to standards. It is only the gods that become enlightened and are able to rearrange the angels and demons to suit their worldveiw.....

>>12479544
>both strawman and retardation btfo'd numerous times in these threads already.
Those are valid critiques of Dharmakirti's ideas and some of the other Buddhist schools make similar critiques of them. You didn't provide any arguments though so your claim that it's a strawman can be disregarded.

>Guenonfags shouldn't like Buddha Nature because it implies possibility of Enlightenment without guru.
This reveals you as a brainlet who has no idea what they are talking about my friend, first Guenon did accept the possibility of enlightenment without a Guru which is why he praised Ramana Maharshi who became a Jivanmukti on his own without any teachers, if Guenon thought enlightenment without any Guru was impossible he would have attacked Ramana Maharshi but instead he wrote favorably of him. Also, in some of Guenon's writings he talks about how people can still reach enlightenment in some circumstances if the normal chain of initiation is broken, he just considered initiation and instruction by a qualified teacher to be essential.

Buddha-nature has the same functional implications of the Vedantic teaching that Brahman is never actually bound and is never actually liberated but that these are only conventional references, Vedanta and Guenon agree with certain Buddhist schools that enlightenment is not an effect to be produced through action but something which is attained through the removal of illusion and wrong views, you are obviously talking out of your ass without any detailed understanding of this stuff. Nice try though.