The Crisis of the Modern World

In the first half of the 20th century, a French man, RenèGuènon (1886-1951), struck the conscience of the Westernworld by reminding it about the spiritual knowledge that wasat the heart of all traditional civilizations but that the modernWest had completely lost sight of. A profound knower ofHindu, Islamic, Taoist and other traditions, Guènon expounded,in a similar way as Coomaraswamy with whom he regularlycorresponded, the traditional metaphysics which give aunity beyond the forms to the apparently different traditionsof mankind. In The Crisis of the Modern World, published forthe first time in 1927, he writes a relentless and radical criticismof the modern world, revealing its shallowness whenconfronted with the traditional civilizations. Almost eightyyears later, his words are still fully valid, and applicable to alarge extent to the India of today, which is in danger of beingsubmerged by a strong flow of modern ways and conceptions.