The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr Quotes

“The Principle is Reality in contrast to all that appears as real but which is not reality in the ultimate sense. The Principle is the Abso lute compared to which all is relative. It is Infinite while all else is finite. The Principle is One and Unique while manifestation is multiplicity. It is the Supreme Substance compared to which all else is accident. It is the Essence to which all things are juxtaposed as form. It is at once Beyond-Being and Being while the order of multiplicity is comprised of existents. It alone is while all else becomes, for It alone is eternal in the ultimate sense, while all that is externalized partakes of change. It is the Origin but also the End, the alpha and the omega. It is Emptiness if the world is envisaged as fullness and Fullness if the relative is perceived in the light of its ontological poverty and essential nothingness.”
― William C. Chittick, The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr

“For the traditionalist school it is not a question of which religion is “better,” since all authentic religions come from the same Origin, but there does exist the question from the operative and practical point of view of what possibilities are available at a particular juncture of history, of what one can in practice follow, and of what is no longer in fact available at a given historic moment within a particular religion.”
― William C. Chittick, The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr

“The third possibility is to assert that all religions which come from Heaven are true. This does not mean to imply that all religious claims are true. There is always need for the principle of discernment.”
― William C. Chittick, The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr

“Modernism brought in its wake in the non-Western world not only the erosion of religion but also its revival in a more exclusivist form.”
― William C. Chittick, The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr