Someone once told me that when he entered a mosque he felt constricted by the religious form; this is nonsense, of course, for if this were the case one could never take pleasure in any beautiful color but would appreciate only pure light; one would not see that a pure color also transmits light, though in a particular mode. When I enter a sanctuary, whatever the religion to which it belongs, I perceive with gratitude the particular barakah, and then in and through it the primordial barakah. And this takes nothing away from the fact that the sanctuary proper to the Religio perennis is God’s free Nature.

There are people who adopt the dogmatic narrowness of a religion—its theological eccentricity and bias of soul—because of its symbolism and beauty; on the other hand there are people who reject the symbolism and beauty of a religion because of its narrowness. And yet in every religion there are both beauties and forms of narrowness, even in religions that are in a way prolongations of the Primordial Religion.

The Religio perennis is the body; the Religio formalis is the garment; each has its meaning,and each can be combined with the other in sundry ways.

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