Symbol and Archetype. A Study of the Meaning of Existence (Quinta Essentia) - Softcover

Lings, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1870196058 ISBN 13: 9781870196055

Publisher: Quinta Essentia, 1991

Synopsis

Were one to truly understand the levels of significance provided by such symbols as are presented in this work, one would indeed be well on the way to grasping the nature and purpose of human life and the meaning of existence as understood by the great esoteric systems of spirituality. We are shown in this volume certain aspects of symbolism as they relate to the Divine, the hierarchy of this universe, the function of man, his faculties and qualities. Symbolism is defined in a renewed consciousness that everything--numbers, elements, senses, and colors--has a vertical dimension that gives it a divine significance. This book does not claim to be exhaustive. Its purpose is to enable the reader to dwell on certain basic aspects of symbolism in relation to the Divinity. With references to all the world's great faith traditions, both ancient and current (with special attention devoted to Christianity and Islam), Lings demonstrates how the science of symbols is inextricably linked with the path of Return.

About this title

Synopsis

What is Symbolism? The answer to this question has been known to change altogether a man's life; and ignorance of it can reasonably be said to have produced all the gravest problems of our times. With reference to the great religions of the world, and in particular to Christianity and Islam, Martin Lings here gives us an answer, with an unusually wide scope of illustration, a versatility to which the list of chapter headings bears some witness. At one point we are offered the universal message of four old Lithuanian songs which speak to us, in the language of symbols, from a remote antiquity; at another we are with the Queen of Sheba at her deeply symbolic meeting with Solomon, as recounted in the Qur'an. The central theme is man, stripped of his sub-human excrescences and re-endowed with his infinitely precious primordial heritage, and the reader may be drawn to identify himself with that centre.

Nor is it only his intelligence that impels him, for the further we read, the more we are encouraged to renew our deeply ingrained consciousness that everything - numbers, elements, senses, colours, etc - has a vertical dimension that gives it a divine significance and this awareness brings with it an existential sense of that dimension in ourselves.

About the Author

Martin Lings, formerly Keeper of Oriental Manuscript in the British Museum and the British Library, is the author of three works on Islamic mysticism, The Book of Certainty, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century and What is Sufism?, all published by the Islamic Texts Society. He is also the author of The secret of Shakespeare, Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions, both published by Quinta Essentia, and the splendidly illustrated The Quranic Art of Calligraphy. His Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, also published by the Islamic Texts Society, has been internationally acclaimed as a masterpiece.

Edition details

• Publisher: Quinta Essentia
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1870196058
• ISBN 13: 9781870196055
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 141