A Challenge on PerennialismOn the Kali-Yuga, Reincarnation, and Initiation

By Mateus Soares de Azevedo

On the questions of Reincarnation, the Kali-Yuga, and initiation into the Hindu tradition for Westerners, there have been some misunderstandings. Here I intend to give an answer to these misconceptions. It has also been said that there exists an “existential paradox” in the fact that the great spokesmen of the Perennial Philosophy acknowledge Hinduism as the most direct heritage of the Primordial Tradition, and yet many of them practice Islamic esoterism, or Sufism, as their personal spiritual way.

There is nothing “paradoxical” here, for Perennialists are not focused on the Hindu religion in itself, or on its “form”, but on pure metaphysics. Metaphysics which was clearly and inspiringly expounded through theVedânta.

It is not for nothing that Perennialist authors do not make a point of proselytizing their own particular religious form. This, because they are first and foremost intent on expounding the Truth, pure and universal Truth, which can be approached through a variety of religious forms.

These forms have necessarily to be orthodox. And these revealed and orthodox religions are, for Westerners, basically three: Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

Judaism and Hinduism are religions for a specific group or groups of people, in which one has normally to have been born inside them in order to follow them.

Certainly that there are rare cases of people who are not Hindus by birth who, having overcome the difficulties, have converted to this religion, but normally one has to be born a Hindu in order to follow Hinduism.

In spite of these rare exceptions, it is true to say that one cannot become a Hindu, whereas one can become a Muslim (or a Christian, or

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a Buddhist), for they are “universal religions”, open to all manner of peoples.

It seems that these criticisms have not understood a basic pillar of Perennialism, and that is, the transcendent, or esoteric, unity of the diverse religious forms – in short, its “supra-formalism” seems not to have been understood.

Neither Frithjof Schuon nor René Guénon was focused on Hinduism in itself, but on what is universal and perennial in Hindu doctrine, that is, Vedânta or the metaphysical core. They “chose” Sufism, not out of any sentimental consideration of attachment, but precisely because Sufism offers especially favorable conditions for approaching the Religio perennis. Just to cite one such advantage, Sufism allows for a great latitude in the direct relationship between master and disciple, that is, they do not have to answer to an outside and exoteric authority above them.

Reincarnation

The Perennialist presentation of Hinduism has been considered “misleading”, beginning with the question of reincarnation, since contemporary Hindus seem to do believe in reincarnation.

Well, in order to answer this point as quickly as possible, I would invite these critics to come to my country, Brazil, a Catholic one, and they will immediately see that far too many contemporary “Catholics” here also believe in evolution, “theological progress”, and many other strange beliefs!

The fact that many contemporary Hindus believe in reincarnation proves nothing.

According to Guénon, the idea of reincarnation is a metaphysical impossibility, for a being cannot pass through the same order of Reality twice.

Initiation for a Westerner

Another question is the one of initiation in Hinduism for westerners. René Guénon was allegedly “unfamiliar” with the “concrete realities”’

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of India, as “Neo-Hinduism ignores the obstacles of castes”. The point here is that no one serious enough would take seriously neo-Hinduism. What kind of serious criticisms is this? What will come next, Scientology? The Reverend Moon?

Initiation in Hinduism is not for non-Hindus. Initiation is available in Christianity and Islam.

The Kali-yuga

The last point I want to deal here is the Kali-yuga. According to a critic, the Perennialist equation “modernity = end of the Kali-yuga” is naïve. An author wrote in the Canadian journal Sacred Web (N. 27) that a “tempting way of countering my objection would be to claim prophetic insights for Guénon on the question”. This is not necessary, as Guénon himself was the first to deny such a claim.

On the contrary, one of the strong indications that the Kali-yuga is already with us is, paradoxically, the fact that there are now people saying that we are far away from it, even among so called “traditionalists”. And this opinion against the universal testimony of many different religious traditions.

In fact, all the traditions concur that we are presently living the end of times, this is taught by Hinduism, which says the end of a Maha-Yuga is the age of Kali, that is, the Kali-Yuga.

Christianity uses the term “The End Times", while Islam uses “The Last Days”. And Buddhism terms it “Mappô”, and so on and so forth.

A strong signal of the end times in which we live is precisely the tremendous crisis that the religions are now passing through.

Catholicism has been in collapse since Vatican II (1962-65) and its sequelae. Catholicism has been dismantled before our very eyes, and this onslaught has been resisted only by small groups of traditionalist Catholics scattered all over the globe. But the “official church” that exhibits itself in the Vatican is clearly not traditional any more.

Traditional Islam, for its part, is being attacked without quarter by the so called “Islamic”’ terrorists, and the “fundamentalists”. Buddhism is

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attacked by the forces of dissolution that are particularly present in the world of today. If we consider the fact that, up until the middle of the XX th. century, the religions just cited were in relatively good shape, one can have an idea as to the nature of the “phase” of the Kali-yuga which we are currently traversing. The fact that they are collapsing, they that have Divine promises as to endure till the end, is just an indication of the seriousness of the times we live in.

In my view, lucubrations such as these against the traditional understanding of Reincarnation, the Kali-Yuga, and initiation into Hinduism, as expounded by the Guénon-Schuon school of intellectuality and spirituality, should be rejected.

(A version of this text was published in the volume 28 of the Canadian journal Sacred Web.)

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