Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta

René Guénon (1886–1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization.

Guénon published his fundamental doctrinal work, Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, in 1925. After asserting that the Vedanta represents the purest metaphysics in Hindu doctrine, he acknowledges the impossibility of ever expounding it exhaustively and states that the specific object of his study will be the nature and constitution of the human being. Nonetheless, taking the human being as point of departure, he goes on to outline the fundamental principles of all traditional metaphysics, leading the reader gradually to the doctrine of the Supreme Identity and its logical corollary, the possibility that the being in the human state might in this very life attain liberation—the unconditioned state where all separateness and risk of reversion to manifested existence ceases. Although Guénon chose the doctrine of the Advaita school (and in particular that of Shankara) as his basis, Man and His Becoming should not be considered exclusively an exposition of this school and of this master. It is, rather, a synthetic account drawing not only upon other orthodox branches of Hinduism, but not infrequently also upon the teachings of other traditional forms. Neither is it a work of erudition in the sense of the orientalists and historians of religion, who study doctrines from the “outside,” but represents knowledge of the traditionally transmitted and effective “sacred science.” Guénon treats other aspects of Hinduism in his Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines and Studies in Hinduism.

“Guénon established the language of sacred metaphysics with a rigor, breadth, and intrinsic certainty that compel recognition as a standard of comparison for the twentieth century.” —Jean Borella

“Guénon gave proof of a universality of understanding that for centuries had had no parallel in the Western world.” —Frithjof Schuon

“It was Guénon who taught me to seek and love the truth above all else, and to be unsatisfied with anything else.” —Fr Seraphim Rose

“Encountering Guénon’s work is akin to being struck by lightning: a dazzling initiation into a hitherto unknown way of seeing reality that reclaims the original integrity of the human condition.” —Samuel Bendeck Sotillos

“Guénon’s mixture of arcane learning, metaphysics, and scathing cultural commentary is a continent in itself, untouched by the polluted tides of modernity.” —Jocelyn Godwin

“Guénon reaffirmed the values that constitute the only sound basis for living a life with dignity and purpose, or forming of a civilization worthy of the name.” —Philip Sherrard

“Guénon was one of the greatest prophets of our time.” —Huston Smith

“No modern European writer was more significant than René Guénon, who expounded the universal metaphysical tradition that is the indispensable basis for any civilization deserving to be so called.” —A. K. Coomaraswamy

“Guénon’s works are such potent metaphysical attacks on the downward drift of Western civilization as to make all other contemporary critiques seem half-hearted by comparison.” —Jacob Needleman