why do you need to practice "exoteric life" in the first place?

>>23901781
Guenon is great but you're not going to find what he's talking about about in any religion available to you which according to him means your not gonna find it at all. So take up meditation and study. Nothing else to do. He says you need initiation but we have to assume self initiation is possible or we are doomed. Plus he says self initiation is possible in extremely rare cases. So why not for you?

>>23901781
Religions are ultimately a form of culture. You can’t practice a religion alone. You can have personal beliefs, but that’s not the same thing as religion. I’d say religion, like culture in general.. must be practiced and shared. (I obviously don’t mean “shared” as in attempt to convert people). If you don’t like the culture of a church near you, or don’t like one aspect and it’s a deal breaker for you… then leave I guess? Try to form your own thing? Or just suck it up and join anyway, whatever you want to do. But just because you’re a member doesn’t mean you have to become like them, you can keep your beliefs and share your version with them.

>>23901791
For the trads you have to do both. There isn't a pure esoteric accessible outside of exoteric religion. But we don't have to agree and it wouldn't do any good to anyway.

>>23901802
In the west at least, religion is dogmatic, so you can't really hold your own beliefs and be a true part of a church. A guenon adherent is counter to Christianity for instance as most guenon influence Christians concluded. In any case, when you observe the people these churches produce do they seem in contact with gnosis?

>>23901806
that's not true and it's not a matter of agreement, even early guenon with his relatively limited context in an oppressive milieu begrudgingly admitted that self-initiation is possible. if you firmly stand on this point we can move on to some other line of reasoning, but take into account this possibility first

>>23901814
I agree that he thinks self initiation can happen in very rare cases but even so those happen in a religious context like swedenbord and Christianity. And I even point to self initiation here: >>23901799

My point is if you ask a trad type theyre gonna say you have to join a religion and guenon would agree even with a one in a billion chance of self initiation. I'm not saying you should join a religion. I'm just saying the trads say effectively you have to.

>>23901830
ok, I mistook you for OP. if you reason from the point of view of a 'guenonist' so to speak, what you're saying of initiation and religion might be what they would say (if this isn't our strawman). but following guenon by the letter instead of the thought is totally missing the point, buddhist traditions are more than accessible and there are multiple schools bare of sentimentality. I think it's more than reasonable to explore here if one is getting hung up on exoteric religiosity.

Guenon more or less thinks without initiation into a legitimate religion of which even Catholicism now fails you will not have the proper internal structuring to direct your spiritual realizations. Hinduism at least at the time wasn't accepting of westerners and so Islam and Buddhism were the only alternatives. Trads seem to tend towards sufi Islam as the esoteric teaching of Islam so it isn't even joining a religion you need access to the esoteric core of that religion transmitted from master to student in a chain of imitation going back to primordial history. I heard that guenon would not tell anyone which religion to join but if asked by a Westerner he would say join Islam. Pure Lands Buddhism seems popular with trad authors as well as Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism is a world religion where Hinduism is not so open to all so it would also be an option. My greatest critique of all this is I have never met someone of any of these religions who seemed uniquely enlightened even if knowledgeable and so I am skeptical that most will find the spiritual successes guenon talks about.

>>23901781
I just want an ethnic religion that values solitary contemplation and bars people who are enemies of my race from entering. Sick and tired of Germanic people.

>>23901910
>Sick and tired of being reminded of my inferiority
lol

>>23901903
>My greatest critique of all this is I have never met someone of any of these religions who seemed uniquely enlightened
have you met these people at all? could you have met any such person to begin with? I have never, but I don't expect to considering my circumstance, yet I can find them throughout history and literature. that's enough for me.

>>23901902
I think you may be micharacterizing the trads a little. They wouldn't recommend a loose attitude to exoteric religion. But if you mean missing the point in terms of whats practical I agree.
But yeah joining Buddhism would totally make sense theoretically from either perspective. In fact if pushed that might be the direction I would go if even just to get meditation training. I'm skeptical though that most will find what they're looking for there. I would recommend most pick up contemplative practices on their own. I don't have faith in religions.

>>23901903
No I haven't met anyone spiritually impressive or wise. That's why I'm skeptical of the efficacy of the whole enterprise. But I agree there are some writers in history who are very impressive. Spiritual genius is obviously very rare and I don't think it requires a religious affiliation.

So from the OP if your spiritual understanding doesn't match with your environment I would continue solitary contemplation and would caution against uprooting yourself to join a religion somewhere else that won't likely live up to the fantasy.

>>23901917
Sorry >>23901929 was meant for (you):

>No I haven't met anyone spiritually impressive or wise. That's why I'm skeptical of the efficacy of the whole enterprise. But I agree there are some writers in history who are very impressive. Spiritual genius is obviously very rare and I don't think it requires a religious affiliation.

>So from the OP if your spiritual understanding doesn't match with your environment I would continue solitary contemplation and would caution against uprooting yourself to join a religion somewhere else that won't likely live up to the fantasy

>>23901916
Sick and tired of you conceited, hypocritical Germanic barbarians screaming LARPing bullshit on practically all social media. I want nothing to do with you. You've become no better than the Jews you so despise.

>>23901811
>religion is dogmatic
Not really. Not as a whole. Even something like Christianity has divisions within sects within denominations. Very few churches will kick you out for having a few differences of opinion, as long as you match up generally. And even in the case you don’t… it’s case by case. I personally know Christian churches that would allow even like a Muslim to become a member if they really really wanted. They’d do their darned-est to convince convert them, but they would also join in fellowship out belief in the one true God. Unless your beliefs are off the wall wacky, like you want to form a church of Alf or something, I’m sure you can find your people. Otherwise just believe what you want as an individual… but religions require exchange, and that requires other people.

>>23901976
I'm not saying a church won't let you sit in their pews and by calling them dogmatic I don't meant that as a slur I mean they have a dogma that is required to be a full member. You can exist on the fringes but a creedal religion requires you agree to the creed. The existence of other sects and denominations doesn't make them nondogmatic the large splits are over dogma specifically. Further unless we're talking about progressive Christian churches which wouldnt make sense if the thread is related to Guenon. Most big guenon inspired Christians leave guenon behind specifically because he contradicts church dogma. So yes you can go to a church but you won't be fulfilling guenons instruction to be initiated into a traditional religion if you hold beliefs that would make true faith in that church impossible by their own creedal status.

My suspicion is that if you want to waste a ton of time and energy on unimportant things and be pressured to have faith in things you don't believe then join a religion. Otherwise take up a serious meditation and study regime.

Guenon made a huge mistake by believing that there is a hard split between the esoteric and the exoteric. This mistake was the big reason that Christianity filtered him so hard.

>>23902067
try again

>>23902077
Cool argument, bro.

>>23902067
But he didn't think there was a necessary hard split. In Hinduism he thought there wasn't, Islam had a hard split between Sufism and regular Islam. Christianity he actually thought started as an isolated esoteric only cult which exotericized itself in the interest of saving the masses. This was largely good in his mind because it saved western civilization for a time but also relegated Christian esoterism to a deeply unaccessible status for most people and ultimately Christian civilization was passing into unrecoverable decline.

Guenon is a valuable read but he doesn't offer solutions that the vast majority of people would be willing to pursue. I wouldn't think it would be good to pursue his solutions even. But if you're spiritually inclined he's valuable. Just don't be dogmatic about what he says.

>>23901940
I think this is only partly true. While many germanics today, as individuals and as peoples, have adopted the historically hated values and practices of the jews, jew-hatred depends on them being spread out and interconnected through the nations. While you'll find corrupt germans here and there, there aren't german international networks, nor do they deny local culture to enforce their own. There's no organization or will to it, it's just adaptation to highly jewish times and societes

>>23901910
It is very unlucky for you that you are not greek/balkan/egyptian/middle eastern/russian so you could take residence on mt athos

>>23902067
the eso/exoteric distinction is localized in the individual not in an apparently external religion

Guenon wrote that for the qualified man, even exoteric rites could be transformed into something more beneficial, salvation is also a perfectly valid accomplishment. In any case it makes no difference to what "honesty" etc. is, the only difference between initiation and mysticism is that one is active the other is passive however arguably, this distinction is only an illusion from the outside even if it does condition the approaches at the outset.

Its not as external as you conceive it, people like to believe this because it diminishes personal responsibility in the matter and puts any effective "inner work" (which can only be done by oneself as guenon put it) into the future

>>23901799
> but you're not going to find what he's talking about about in any religion available to you
Why would you think that? It’s not something that Guenon believed in

>>23902956
I don't think you're giving credit to how pessimistic guenon was about access to legitimate initiation in the west but I guess I am skeptical that joining your local mosque is going to help you achieve gnosis. I would say pursuing meditation in your own life along with study is your best bet.

>>23901781
>what do you do when your understanding of theology and genuine faith aligns more with religions not practiced where you live or perhaps even long-gone religions?
You stop larping.

>>23904233
It's just a necessary step in the process of stopping larping. The first culture you larp as is your own.

>>23904213
>was about access to legitimate initiation in the west
He wasn’t skeptical about it in the east though, he spoke about certain kinds of Mahayana/Vajrayana as being valid, as well as Sufism and Hindu tantra. Classical Vedanta is not really accessible to westerners because it’s closely bound up with varnashrama-dharma but the Hindu Tantric sects are fully open to westerners and some of the them that teach non-duality still survive today. If someone really wants to they can seek out teachers of these things who live in the west or they can travel to centers of spiritual learning in the east to stay there and learn for a while.

>>23904264
That's probably true even though I think you're overselling it. He thought the east was being increasingly westernized even in his day. But let's take it as a given that there are legitimate initiations available in the east. I wouldn't recommend a Westerner uproot their whole life to seek spirituality in the east. Further I don't think most who spend some time in the east are really going to achieve gnosis. So like I say I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for in joining a religion. But I don't take a doctrinaire stance on guenon anyway.

>>23901781
I have my strong (and merited) doubts that this will go over incredibly well with many people, or even with the OP (who claims to be interested in exactly some of the issues brought up in this article I’m going to link), but in the off-chance that it does help anyone, I will link it. But the most likely common — and understandable — reaction will be that this is “schizo”, or something like that:

https://www.absolutoracle.com/Rudrachakrin/Articles/TheTruthBeyondTruth.htm

Also, I guess, this:
https://www.absolutoracle.com/Rudrachakrin/Articles/GoingBeyondConditionedAuthority.htm

(It’s not my own website and I didn’t write these articles, although it’d be cool if I did, is my own opinion and subjective judgment.)

I would offer that one could closer follow Schuon who was much more positive about spiritual access in the west even regarding protestantism. You could join a protestant church and just interpret everything in the advaitan framework. However it would be difficult for me to belong to a church where my true beliefs were heretical and I was interpreting their dogma in a way that I considered superior.

You keep reading so you can get beyond the Guenon phase that we all went through 5-10 years ago.

>>23904389
Am I to believe that guenon is not "in" anymore?
What is "in" in spiritual literature these days?

On lit guenon is the main but the trads themselves seem to think Schuon improved on his presentation