René Guénon follows the Hindu metaphysics, according to which, above the divine person, Ishwara, who is the face of God turned to created beings, there is the Being, or secret essence of God, and above the Being the Supra-Being, the Suprapersonal and anonymous, infinite and eternal Brahman, alternating in states of "manifestation" and "non-manifestation" ("days and nights of Brahman") in which entire universes appear and disappear together with the Being itself. This conception is totally self-contradictory, because if there are no created beings before which God can "manifest", to whom would He manifest Himself? For Himself? This would imply that in His states of total non-manifestation He would ignore Himself, constituting an infinite ocean not of wisdom, but of forgetfulness, and, even worse, with no one around to awaken Him again to His own presence. The God who is not a Person can only be a "thing", an abstract "quid", an "x", a "something", and I don't see how the state of "something" can be superior to that of "person", which is, in fact — as exemplified analogously and partially in the very human person — the perfect synthesis of transparency and impenetrability, above which nothing can be conceived. The scale that rises from Ishwara to Brahman is in fact reversed, it is a "thingistic" distortion:
False Metaphysics
False Metaphysics
False Metaphysics
René Guénon follows the Hindu metaphysics, according to which, above the divine person, Ishwara, who is the face of God turned to created beings, there is the Being, or secret essence of God, and above the Being the Supra-Being, the Suprapersonal and anonymous, infinite and eternal Brahman, alternating in states of "manifestation" and "non-manifestation" ("days and nights of Brahman") in which entire universes appear and disappear together with the Being itself. This conception is totally self-contradictory, because if there are no created beings before which God can "manifest", to whom would He manifest Himself? For Himself? This would imply that in His states of total non-manifestation He would ignore Himself, constituting an infinite ocean not of wisdom, but of forgetfulness, and, even worse, with no one around to awaken Him again to His own presence. The God who is not a Person can only be a "thing", an abstract "quid", an "x", a "something", and I don't see how the state of "something" can be superior to that of "person", which is, in fact — as exemplified analogously and partially in the very human person — the perfect synthesis of transparency and impenetrability, above which nothing can be conceived. The scale that rises from Ishwara to Brahman is in fact reversed, it is a "thingistic" distortion: