Editing Seyyed Hossein Nasr (section)

===Religion and spirituality===

According to Nasr, man is "a theomorphic being living in this world but created for eternity"{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=145}} because his "soul is immortal".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=268}} The ''post-mortem'' salvation of the soul, reminds Nasr, is "the first duty of man", according to every religion,{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=10}} – a soul tainted here below by its "centrifugal tendencies", its "passions".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=66}}

Nasr contends that all religions have an origin in God,{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=29}} reveal the paths which "leads to either felicity in the hereafter or damnation, to the paradisal or infernal states",{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=274}} and require "faith".{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=91}}

Each new "descent" of a revelation brings a particular "spiritual genius", "fresh vitality, uniqueness and the grace which make its rites and practices operative, not to speak of the paradisal vision which constitutes the origin of its sacred art or of the sapience which lies at the heart of its message".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=30}} This wisdom, continues Nasr, accounts for the "Ultimate Reality", which is both "beyond everything and at the very heart and center of man's soul",{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=124}} that is to say in his "spirit".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=26}} The quest for wisdom or knowledge, through "spiritual practice" and the "cultivation of virtues", can lead to "salvation in the highest sense of this term, which means total deliverance from the bonds of all limitations".{{sfn|Hahn|2001 |p=663}}

Nasr argues that spirituality requires a constant practice and a rigorous discipline within the framework of a religion, and he considers the current commercialization of the "pseudo-spiritual" to be indicative of people wanting the spiritual result without the effort.{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=165-166}}

Daoud Riffi emphasizes that [[Sufism]] is the spiritual path followed by Seyyed Hossein Nasr in a universalist framework which attests to the principial unity of all major religions. Nasr's Sufism relates to the intellect in its medieval sense, that is, the spiritual heart: "True knowledge is therefore a matter of the heart, not of the mind, and the fruit of an interior asceticism."{{sfn|Riffi|2020 |p=49}}

====Exoterism and esoterism====

Nasr says that every integral religion "possesses at once an external or exoteric dimension" and "an inner or esoteric dimension". The first is "concerned with the external and formal aspect of human life" with a view to the posthumous salvation of those "who follow the precepts" of their religion and who "have faith in its truths". The second concerns "the formless and the essential" with a view to the realization of "the Supreme Essence, here and now".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=30}}

These two dimensions unfold in "a hierarchy of levels from the most outward to the most inward which is the Supreme Center".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=30}} Nasr thus distinguishes three modes of "approaching ultimate Reality": "the ways of work, love and knowledge", which correspond to as many predispositions of human nature. The most interiorizing paths integrate those which are less so, but the latter, not necessarily possessing the capacity "to understand what is beyond them", sometimes become the causes of "tensions" within the same religion. Nasr adds that "all human beings can be saved if only they follow religion according to their own nature and vocation".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=31}} And he warns "on the social level, on the level of human action, the barriers and conditions established by the exoteric dimension of the religion should not be transgressed", including by those who "follow the path of esoterism, the inward or mystical path".{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=173}}{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=274}}

Since there are "questions that exoterism cannot answer," it is important "for religion to keep alive the reality and the significance of esoterism for people who have the capability and need to understand the inner or esoteric dimension of the tradition".{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=174}}  This is what Islam, for example, continues to accomplish today with its inner dimension, Sufism, which remains a living tradition.{{sfn|The Garden of Truth|2008 |p=189-190}} On the other hand,

{{blockquote|what happened in Christianity, which is a great tragedy, I believe, for both Christianity and Western civilization, and in fact for the rest of the world, is that after the Renaissance, gradually a wall was created, and Western Christianity's inner dimension became more or less inaccessible and to a large extent eclipsed. It is not accidental that during the last two or three hundred years, Christianity has not produced figures such as a Meister Eckhart, Tauler, or Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and we could go down the list of hundreds of earlier great saints and mystics. [...] today so many people of Christian background look to Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism for the inner dimension of religion.{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010|p=173}} <small>(interview)</small>}}

====Essential unity of religions====

In a commentary on a work by Nasr, [[Adnan Aslan]] reports that for Nasr, the various religions are "forms of the eternal truth which has been revealed by God to humankind through various agencies".{{sfn|Aslan|2004 |p=22}} It is this common truth which constitutes "the transcendent unity of religions", he says, referring to the expression proposed by Frithjof Schuon.{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=94}}

"It is only on the level of the Supreme Essence ... standing above all the cosmic sectors from the angelic to the physical within which a particular religion is operative, that the ultimate unity of religions is to be sought".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993|p=31}} This unity, for Nasr, is "not to be found at the level of external forms; [...] religions do not simply say the same thing despite the remarkable unanimity of principles and doctrines and the profound similarity of applications of these principles".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993|p=31}} At the heart of every religion lies "what Schuon calls the ''religio perennis''", that is to say, "a doctrine concerning the nature of reality and a method for being able to attain what is Real". Doctrine and method vary from one religion to another but their essence and goal are universal.{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=31}}

As a result, no religion is in itself "better" than another, concludes Nasr, since "all authentic religions come from the same Origin", but in practical terms it is nevertheless necessary "to distinguish the possibilities" that remain valid in the current state of "degradation" of each of the religions.{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=32}} For Nasr, given the celestial origin of all religions, it is appropriate to respect their slightest particularities and to treat them "with reverence, as every manifestation of the sacred should be".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=31}}

====Interreligious dialogue====

According to [[Jane Idleman Smith|Jane I. Smith]], Nasr is "one of the most visible partners" of Islamic-Christian dialogue thanks to "his training in Christian theology and philosophy, combined with his remarkable knowledge of all Islamic sciences".{{sfn|Smith|2003 |p=15}}

Nasr points out that ordinary believers consider their religion to be ''the'' religion.{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=10}} Injunctions such as: "I am the way, the truth, the life" ([[Jesus]]) or "No one sees God unless he has seen me" ([[Mohammed]]),{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=8}} necessarily lead, for these same believers, to the certainty of the pre-eminence of their own religion, a conviction that could lead to the refusal to consider other religions as valid.{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=10}} This refusal, for Nasr, can be considered as legitimate since it stems from revelation, therefore from God;{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=290}} God wants to "save souls", he does not ask the believer to deal with "[[comparative religion]]" nor to accept the validity of other revelations.{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=10}} In a traditional world, such exclusivism presented no hindrance,{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=10}} but in today's world, the mixing of populations calls many believers to question the value of the religions they encounter daily.{{sfn|The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr|2007 |p=4}}

Religion as it is seen in the world, says Nasr, "comes from the wedding between a Divine Norm and a human collectivity destined providentially to receive the imprint of that Norm." Thus, "racial, ethnic and cultural differences" constitute "one of the causes for multiplicity" of religions, "but religion itself cannot be reduced to its terrestrial embodiment".{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=29-30}} For Nasr, there is only one truth and it necessarily manifests itself in "all the different authentic religious universes, otherwise God would not be merciful and just".{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=291}} But it is not, according to Nasr, the exoteric level, that of divergences, which allows access to a true understanding and acceptance of other religions;{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=290}}{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=31}} only esotericism, which transcends the formal dimensions of religions, allows, according to him, uncompromising adherence to the authenticity of all revelations,{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=290}} by recognizing in them a supra-formal unity which resolves these very differences.{{sfn|The Need for a Sacred Science|1993 |p=31}}

Nasr actively participates in the dialogue between Christians and Muslims. In 2008, he was the main Muslim speaker, opposite [[Benedict XVI]], at the first Catholic-Muslim Forum organized by the [[Holy See|Vatican]].{{sfn|Lumbard|2013 |p=178}} For Nasr, "one of the reasons why it is so difficult to have a deep religious dialogue today" with Christians, is due – besides their conviction "that there is no salvation outside the Church"{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=297}}{{efn|Exclusivism alien to Islam, "for the Quran asserts clearly that people who do good works and have faith will be rewarded for their actions and will be saved, but does not say that this is true for only Muslims. There are some exclusivist and short-sighted Muslims today who believe that anyone who is not a Muslim is an infidel and will go therefore to hell, but that is not the traditional Islamic doctrine and goes against the text of the Quran". Interview in ''In Search of the Sacred'', 2010, p. 292. Nasr refers here, among others, to Quran 2:62: "Indeed the faithful, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabaeans, those of them who have faith in God and the Last Day and act righteously, they shall have their reward near their Lord, and they will have no fear, nor will they grieve".}} – to the absence of an "esoteric dimension, interior [...], mystical", which centuries of secularism have stifled. For Islam, which is not "theologically threatened by the presence of other religions in the same way that Christianity is",{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=291}} the influence of secularism occurred much later than in the West, and Sufism, which is its interior dimension, continues to inspire "the most profound doctrines that have been formulated concerning the plurality of religions and the relationship between them".{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=290-291}}

For Nasr, as Jahanbegloo emphasizes, dialogue is "not only a pursuit of truth, but also a challenge to spiritual responsibility" of each religion to try to "heal the wounds of the present-day secularized world" in which we live.{{sfn|Jahanbegloo|2010 |p=xiii–xiv}}