Tradition is abandoned, not because people are no longer capable of understanding its language, but because they do not wish to understand it, for this language is made to be understood till the end of the world; tradition is falsified by reducing it to flatness on the plea of making it more acceptable to "our time", as if one could - or should - accommodate truth to error. Admittedly, a need to reply to new questions and new forms of ignorance can always arise. One can and must explain the sacred doctrine, but not at the expense of that which gives it its reason for existing, that is to say, not at the expense of its truth and effectiveness.
- from No Activity Without Truth by Frithjof Schuon
Monday, September 24, 2012
Tradition?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
One should also note, however, that the singular tradition to which Schuon and other perennialists refer does always express itself in time, and as such its manifestations are many, each suited to the place and time of its emergence.
ReplyDeleteSure, but there's also the question of how much accommodation can take place in a culture defined by Jersey Shore and iDolatry - "as if one could - or should - accommodate truth to error."
ReplyDelete