To be normal is to be homogeneous, and to be homogeneous is to have a center. A normal man is one whose tendencies are, if not altogether uniform, at least concordant—that is to say, sufficiently concordant to convey that decisive center which we may call the sense of the Absolute or the love of God. The tendency towards the Absolute, for which we are made, is difficult to realize in a heterogeneous soul—a soul lacking a center, precisely, and by that fact contrary to its reason for being. Such a soul is a priori a “house divided against itself”, thus
destined to collapse, eschatologically speaking.
The anthropology of India—which is spiritual as well as social—distinguishes on the one hand between homogeneous men whose centers are situated at three different levels,1 and on the other hand between these men taken as a totality and those who, having no center, are not homogeneous; 2 it attributes this lack either to a degeneration or to a “mixture of castes”—especially those castes that are furthest removed from each other. But it is of the natural castes, not the social ones, that we wish to speak here: the former do not always coincide with the castes representing them socially, for the institutional caste allows for exceptions, inasmuch as it becomes numerically very large and thereby includes all human possibilities. Thus, without wanting to concern ourselves with the castes of India, we shall describe as succinctly as possible the fundamental tendencies which they are meant to transmit, tendencies which are found wherever there are men, with various predominant traits according to the nature of the group…
The text above is from Chapter 1 of the book To Have a Center: A New Translation with Selected Letters by Frithjof Schuon © 2015 World Wisdom Inc. All Rights Reserved. For Personal Usage Only. www.worldwisdom.com