Book Description
In this newly revised English translation from the French, including a comprehensive glossary, this volume surveys the enormous range of Schuon's writngs on prayer and spiritual life.


From the Publisher
The title of this book deserves careful thought, for the full measure of its implications may not at first be evident. Some readers will be surprised by the words we have chosen, thinking that the truth of the matter is just the opposite. Is it not man who fashions prayer? Prayer is an act, and human beings are the agents of that act; whether what they say is prescribed by a religious tradition or uttered spontaneously in a moment of sorrow or gladness, men and women themselves do the praying, and their prayers, be they only imprecations, reflect in some way the kind of persons they are, giving form to their aspirations and fears and affording insight into the quality of their inner life. How we pray—whether only reluctantly and in moments of crisis or according to a regular discipline, and whether our prayers are of a purely devotional and discursive kind or include as well a contemplative and methodic aspect—can be a revealing testimony as to who or what we really are. Others may respond less with surprise than a ready acceptance. Of course prayer fashions man, they will say. More than a monologue, as unbelievers suppose, our expressions of petition and praise constitute a genuine communication with God, and the answers we receive can bring about real change in our life. As a sculptor fashions clay or a poet words—as the wind or a stream gives shape to a dune or a valley—so do a man’s prayers, faithfully and persistently repeated over the course of his life, come in time to transform the substance of his soul, eliminating the faults in his character, providing him with an increasing strength and stability, and bringing him step by step with God’s help toward the fulfillment of his hopes and dreams. Anyone who doubts this truth, refusing out of pride or despair to call upon Heaven, has only to consult that most dazzling of proofs which is the existence of saints. Each of these perspectives contains an element of truth; prayer both fashions and is fashioned by man, and the writings here assembled will serve in part to corroborate and amplify these important insights. But if we are to grasp the full scope of what follows, there is a further-reaching and more elusive fact to be noticed. Fashioning can refer to a process of shaping or forming, the existence of the thing fashioned being presupposed in this case; but the word also has a constitutive and not merely formative sense and can be used more profoundly, as it was often used in times past, to signify an act of creation, the bringing into being of something where there was nothing before—as God fashions man in His image and likeness. As we shall discover, this deeper significance is central to this book. "The very fact of our existence is a prayer and compels us to pray," its author has written; "I am: therefore I pray; sum ergo oro." If we could see ourselves as we truly are, we would realize that human nature, made to serve as pontifex for the rest of creation, is itself a mode of prayer, and this being so it is impossible for us not to pray, whether well or ill; even more remarkably, it is only because, or insofar as, we do pray that we can truly be said to exist, human existence being derived, with or without our awareness, from the prior reality of prayer. Man’s innermost being, and not just his personality or character, is in some mysterious way interwoven into the actual fabric of prayer, and without the generative force of his orisons, he would be "without form and void". In short, prayer fashions man in making him real. What this could mean, and how we might best make sense in our own experience! of so striking a claim, are questions lying at the heart of the following meditations. The author is uniquely qualified to aid us in our search for answers. Widely acknowledged as one of the twentieth century’s foremost authorities on the world’s religions, and the leading exponent of the traditionalist or perennialist school of comparative religious philosophy, Frithjof Schuon was the author of over twenty books, as well as numerous articles, letters, texts of spiritual instruction, and other unpublished materials; the depth of his insights and the masterful quality of his early writing had brought him international recognition while he was still in his twenties, and by the time of his death in 1998 at the age of ninety, his reputation among many scholars of mysticism, esoterism, and contemplative traditions was unsurpassed.


About the Author
James S. Cutsinger (Ph.D., Harvard) is Professor of Theology and Religious Thought at the University of South Carolina. A widely recognized authority on the Sophia Perennis and the traditionalist school of comparative religious thought, he is best known for his work on the Swiss philosopher Frithjof Schuon. Professor Cutsinger serves as secretary to the Foundation for Traditional Studies, and he is currently editing the Collected Works of Frithjof Schuon.


Excerpted from Prayer Fashions Man: Frithjof Schuon On The Spiritual Life (Library of Perennial Philosophy) by James S. Cutsinger, Philip Zaleski. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1: Man must meet God with all that he is, for God is the Being of all; this is the meaning of the Biblical injunction to love God "with all our strength". Now one of the dimensions characterizing man de facto is that he lives toward the exterior and furthermore tends toward pleasures; this is his outwardness and his concupiscence. He must renounce them before God, for in the first place God is present in us, and in the second place man must be able to find pleasure within himself and independently of sensorial phenomena. But everything that brings one closer to God partakes of His beatitude for that very reason; to rise, by praying, above the images and noise of the soul is a liberation through the divine Void and Infinitude; it is the station of serenity. It is true that outward phenomena, by their nobleness and their symbolism—their participation in the celestial Archetypes—can have an interiorizing virtue, and each thing can be good in its season. Nevertheless detachment must be realized; otherwise man would have no right to a legitimate outwardness, and otherwise he would fall into a seductive outwardness and concupiscence that are mortal for the soul. Just as the Creator by His transcendence is independent of creation, so man must be independent of the world in view of God. Free will is the endowment of man; only man is capable of resisting his instincts and desires. Vacare Deo. Another of man’s endowments is reasonable thought and speech; this dimension must therefore be actualized during that encounter with God which is prayer. Man is saved not only by abstaining from evil, but also, and a fortiori, by accomplishing the Good; now the best of works is that which has God as its object and our heart as its agent, and this is the "remembrance of God" The essence of prayer is faith, hence certitude; man manifests it precisely by speech, or appeal, addressed to the Sovereign Good. Prayer, or invocation, equals certitude of God and of our spiritual vocation. Action is valid according to its intention; it is obvious that in prayer there must be no intention tainted with ambition of any kind; it must be pure of all worldly vanity, on pain of provoking the Wrath of Heaven. Wholehearted prayer not only benefits him who accomplishes it; it also radiates around him and in this respect is an act of charity. Every man is in search of happiness; this is another dimension of human nature. Now there is no perfect happiness outside God; any earthly happiness has need of Heaven’s blessing. Prayer places us in the presence of God, who is pure Beatitude; if we are aware of this, we will find Peace in it. Happy is the man who has the sense of the Sacred and who thus opens his heart to this mystery.

FROM THE PUBLISHER