“Sophia perennis”: eternal wisdom
Sophia perennis, “eternal wisdom” is not a religion. It is the platform that gives us access to the experience of our true being. It is the essence of all religions, the experience of reality from which all religions stem and to which all confessions take us.
Sophia perennis is the acknowledgement of the salvation message upon which all religions rely. It is the experience of the primordial depth of the being, realized as this rational and inapprehensible evolution, the experience of the “primordial energy” that shapes out all shapes and structures and gives to men and women the authentic interpretation of our life.
Men and women are merely a wink in that timeless universe. To delve into that acknowledgement represents a decisive step forward in the maturing process of humanity. It is to join the cosmic law. Because that which we call “God”, “divinity”, “emptiness”, is not out there, but rather, these are names for the most intimate of the occurrence of evolution, an occurrence that is beyond all philosophical or theological concepts. It does not have a fixed position or established place. Its only position is here and now in which that primordial reality with so many different names manifests itself.
Sophia perennis exceeds all confessions and, at the same time, fulfils all confessions. Whoever has experienced it can return to his/her religious tradition at any time. But from then on, s/he will interpret it and celebrate it in a different manner, because that experience will have taken him/her to the true origin of what faith means.
Sophia perennis points to the way towards a knowledge free from representations, opinions and concepts. “A special tradition outside scriptures, independent of the word and the characters of writing, which immediately shows the heart of the person”, as stated by a definition of zen given by itself.
Sophia perennis, the “eternal wisdom”, leads to a life in harmony with the primordial depth of the being and makes us familiar with true meaning of our human condition.
We reach this wisdom after experiencing the timeless primordial depth.
(Willigis Jäger, Sabiduría eterna, pp. 11-13)
Translated by Mertxe de Renobales Scheifler