Guenon

[Anonymous No.16928083]

Do you guys actually read him? Or does /lit/ just like to meme him because he has a silly looking face? If it isn't the latter, I'd like to know what he's all about. Something about comparing metaphysics?

[Anonymous No.16928120]

[Anonymous No.16928194]

>>16928120
i have never been more confused in my life. how on earth do people manage to get into this stuff?

[Anonymous No.16928236]

>>16928083
There are three types of people involved with Guenon on /lit/ in my experience:
Guenonfag(s): People who have/ have not read him, but meme him as the be all end all of metaphysics, to the annoyance of everyone. You will find them most often in any thread related to non-dualism, especially advita vendanta.

Anti-Guenonfag(s): People who have/ have no read him, mostly combination of Buddhists (which guenon disliked), and just people who dislike Guenonfag(s). You will find them in the same threads

More serious traditionalists: people who have definitely read his work, and dont see him as a infallible guide, but use him in consultation with other writers such as Evola to form their own opinions.

[Anonymous No.16928265]

>>16928236
I see, thank you. I'm interested in his work, but I don't really know where to start. Can you give me some pointers?

[Anonymous No.16928272]

>>16928265
Theres this chart

[Anonymous No.16928295]

[Anonymous No.16928309]

>>16928295
i didn't mean to send this chart OP, my bad. the anon above me sent the right one.

[Anonymous No.16928311]

>>16928295
Extremely based anon. I haven't studied WWI since uni, been meaning to look it again.

[Anonymous No.16928319]

>>16928265
If you're going to read anything from him it should be The Crisis of the Modern World.

[Anonymous No.16928326]

>>16928319
This

[Anonymous No.16928381]

>>16928295
More charts like these?

[Anonymous No.16928387]

>>16928272
>>16928309
>>16928319
>>16928326
Thanks everyone! I've added Crisis of the Modern World to my wishlist, and i'm debating whether or not I should read Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines, since I'm not too big on Hinduism. 118 pages seems like a lot.

[Anonymous No.16928429]

>>16928387
Well he has a short work of only a few pages called 'Oriental Metaphysics' by Guenon which summarised his views well, you could start there and then go to 'Crisis'

[Anonymous No.16928464]

I first read Guenon years before I ended up here, always thought it was bizarre that he ended up a meme and that there are people out there who hate him because they see his face constantly on an image board. I haven't read enough of him, but he's had a great influence on how i understand religion.

[Anonymous No.16928468]

>>16928429
thanks anon, you've saved me a few hours

[Anonymous No.16928479]

>>16928464
> he's had a great influence on how i understand religion
Same, him and Schuon

>>16928468
No problem anon, hope you enjoy it

[Anonymous No.16928503]

>>16928468
Crisis isn't interesting. Read east & west, intro to hindu and then reign quantity &time. Keep in mind guenon is more of an expose in why the west is retarded than metaphysical inquiries

[Anonymous No.16928518]

>>16928503
Read more Guenon and you'll realize he's more than anti-modern polemic.

[Anonymous No.16928541]

>>16928083
What do I need to read before tackling Guenon?

[Anonymous No.16928543]

>>16928541

[Anonymous No.16928556]

>>16928083
I've read some of his work. He's a very interesting figure but I didn't feel the need to devour his entire oeuvre. Just the other day I met a fellow researcher and friend of mine in the park and he brought up Guenon. I assumed right away that he was a /lit/ poster. He didn't want to admit it but came clean eventually.

[Anonymous No.16928566]

>>16928518
I read about half of his oeuvre and he simply uses eastern doctrinal elements to spark interest in metaphysics or show how western thought is lacking, and logically so since metaphysical knowledge cannot be passed down through books. my favorite is principe du calcul infinitésimal

[doubtposting !!0CYbMy7gCdH No.16928584]

>>16928543
No Descartes? How will you BTFO the materialists if you don't even know what materialist is getting BTFO'd?

[Anonymous No.16928857]

>>16928387
I don't know why the guide recommends the introduction to Hindu Doctrines. Having some understanding of Vedanta would be helpful but it's not exactly an easy place to start and it's not like you won't understand any of his other books. Just read what looks interesting, you're not going to hurt yourself by reading the wrong thing at the wrong time.

[Anonymous No.16928908]

>>16928194
For me it started with a university philosophy of religion class and then finding out through independent reading that medieval Islamic and Christian philosophy and Vedic and Chinese philosophy tended to have more compelling treatments of these ideas than the ancient Greeks, Neoplatonists, or Renaissance and after western philosophers.

[Anonymous No.16929015]

>>16928120
>why yes, I am a neurotic schizo Jew who hates Guenonfag and Guenon because they expose the vacuity of my materialist reading of Buddhism, and I also hate Hinduism for being Aryan, how could you tell?

[Anonymous No.16929024]

>>16929015
Chill the fuck out guenonfag

[Anonymous No.16929117]

>>16928120
Any other examples of based Guenonfag's behaviour?

[Anonymous No.16929264]

>>16929024
>anti-Guenonfag isn’t some jew suffering from neuros-

only a Jew would be bothered enough to compose a PSA (with a hand-crafted image to go with it no less) warning other anonymous posters of the *gasp* anti-semitism of another anonymous poster on an underground Tanzanian backgammon information-exchange community

according to him, I’m a “known anti-semite”, watch out!

[Anonymous No.16929310]

>>16928543
It's hilarious to me when people recommend you read Ibn Arabi without a really, really firm foothold in the Qur'an, the basic sunnah like the 40 of nawawi with commentary, the gardens of the righteous by nawawi as well, and at the very, very least some knowledge of Arabic.

Ibn 'Arabi is dense, and difficult enough that Arabic professors of Arabic language attend sufi lectures just to figure out what the hecc the man is saying. Yet, some western orientalist translation is the definite word on his ideas. Like how people think his wahdat al wujud can be compared to the Sun and its rays is actually idiocy.

[Anonymous No.16929347]

>>16928387
>I'm not too big on Hinduism
Better change or ungmi imo. It has too much explanatory power to be ignored without quite severe holes in your understanding.
>>16928083
Yeah. I've read a few books. I found 'man and his becoming...', 'intro to the hindu doctrines', and 'symbolism of the cross' altogether fascinating.
>>16928194
Its a combination of a natural intuition that all is one and I can't remember what made me start coming to lit.

[Anonymous No.16929359]

>>16929310
No one actually reads, dude. It's just about circle jerking. People on here are only aware of guenon because an autistic manchild spent like half a year drowning the board in garbage about him.

[Anonymous No.16929377]

>>16929310
I agree, Ibn Arabi is not to be taken lightly, I myself am still studying him, and still I cannot say I understand fully his ideas. I only gave him a suggestion, having at least SOME knowledge of Ibn Arabi would be helpful, thats all.

[Anonymous No.16929382]

>>16929359
Guenonfag is based and correct.

[Anonymous No.16929384]

>>16929377
but the thing is, people are gonna end up with believing things about his ideas which he would have said take you firmly out of islam. Literally better not to read him than read him wrong.

What are you reading of him currently?

[Anonymous No.16929403]

>>16929384
Right now I am on on Bezels of Wisdom. I 100% agree with you btw, its extremely dangerous to generalise about his ideas, especially any Muslims interested in Sufism. Anything you can recommend to understand from him to help me understand his 'cosmology' (I guess this would probably be the best word for it) properly?

[Anonymous No.16929412]

>>16929403
>to understand from him to help me understand
sorry I am a bit tired

[Anonymous No.16929421]

>>16929412
no worries. Well, just to understand your background a bit more: How familiar are you with the following topics from 1(I don't even know what this is) to 10(I'm a student of knowledge at an islamic seminary and I study this for a living):
Arabic
Qur'an
Hadith
Fiqh
Aqidah

[Anonymous No.16929424]

>>16928083
his (pbuh) literary essay on Dante is beyond based and btfos Hylic professors well after his death.

[Anonymous No.16929426]

>>16929421
0-1
5-6
4-5
4
3-4
I am muslim by the way, but I am a revert of a few years so I am trying learn more and more

[Anonymous No.16929435]

>>16929426
which school of Aqidah do you ascribe to, if I may ask?

[Anonymous No.16929443]

>>16929435
I am Zaydi shia, so I cannot say in a single sentence what my aqidah is as I have not encountered many familiar with Zaydism

[Anonymous No.16929508]

>>16929443
Yeah, I'm not too familiar with the particular tenets of zaydism either, I'm afraid.

So the best explanation of Ibn 'Arabi I've encountered has been the lectures of Shaykh Nuh Keller, especially if you're not familiar with Arabic. They're tricky to access in general, but there are some on youtube. You can also become a member on untotheone.com and listen to the 1999 suhba lectures. They go into great, great detail on Ibn Arabi.

As for the schematic you posted, it suffers from people not being familiar enough with Arabic to translate the concept well. So in Arabic, Allah refers to his creation as "khalq." This can be either a normal noun, or a verbal noun, like "a creating" much like in English. So whenever Allah refers to the created world, Ibn 'Arabi interprets it as Allah referring to his current act of creating. This means that the world has no substance in and of itself at all, it is purely an *act of creation*. The best comparison I can give to explain this is to compare it to a dancer's relationship to the dance. The dancer is the only thing that actually has any form of existence to it. "The dance" has no substance, no form, it is just the descriptive word we use to describe the pattern of action that the dancer is performing. If the dancer stops, the dance doesn't die or is destroyed it just isn't anymore.

This is the relationship of the creation to the creator. This is how Ibn 'Arabi sees existence. For a person to see truth is thus for a person to simply recognize how utterly dependent he is on Allah. That's why Ibn 'Arabi also stated that the highest position a person can attain is to be an absolute 'abd.

[Anonymous No.16929558]

>>16929508
>Yeah, I'm not too familiar with the particular tenets of zaydism either, I'm afraid
no problem at all, have not a person on this site that is. They are very difficult to get a hold of but iv been lucky.

As for your description, that is how I have understood Ibn Arabi's conception of the nature of reality so far. Creation only exists because of the act of creation, so it is not 'real' because it is entirely dependent on Allah, it has no independent (true) existence. of course correct me if im wrong, this is so complex it took me a while to even get to this level, and not knowing classical arabic is a major problem for me in this regard.

Thank you for your recommendations, I will check them out

[Anonymous No.16929575]

>>16928083
>do you guys actually read-
No

[Anonymous No.16929591]

>>16929558
Then you've got a basic grip on the issue. Do consider that the sufism of Ibn 'Arabi is experiential. You want to apply this idea to your life to really grasp what it is he meant.

Next time you pray, rather than trying to do the prayer yourself, try to observe Allah subhanahu wa ta3ala moving you throughout the prayer. Try to observe how he moves your tongue with his Qur'an, with his tasbih, and how he bows you and prostrates you. After the prayer, especially in the 33 alhamdulillah's, try to feel grateful that Allah has chosen to elevate you by letting his dhikr fall off your tongue, with nothing you yourself did to deserve this honour.

Try that for a couple of days and you'll start to *get* ibn Arabi. He's a practical guide, not a theoretical one.

[Anonymous No.16929621]

>>16929591
Thank you brother. I have found this difficult, the practical aspect of Sufism. I have a deep connection to and love for Allah but many times I feel I am far away from him. It saddens me to feel alone like that at times. Thank you so much for your time my brother, I hope Allah guides both of us to jannah.

[Anonymous No.16929672]

>>16929621
Ameen, thumma ameen. If you feel like that specifically, then I highly, highly recommend you listen to the lectures of Shaykh Nuh Keller. On his website https://untotheone.com/ you can go through the index to find his answers to individual questions, but what's even more beneficial is to listen to his 1998 virginia suhba, which is publicly available. This is extremely practical sufism. https://untotheone.com/public/1998-virginia-suhba/

[Anonymous No.16929693]

>>16929672
I will do so. Once again, thank you so much for your time brother, have a wonderful day

[Anonymous No.16929699]

>>16929693
It's my pleasure, alhamdulillah for allowing us to speak. Keep me in your dua's, sidi.