glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

plane, but rather a sphere of reality that transcends these planes and immensely envelops
them, while yet in principle being accessible to man through the intellective and mystical
center of his being, or through the “heart,” if one prefers, or pure “intellect.” It is the
intellect that comprises in its very substance the evidence for the sphere of reality that we
are speaking of and that thus contains the proof of it, if this word can have a meaning in
the domain of direct and participative perception. Indeed the “classical” prejudice of
scientism, or the fault in its method if one wishes, is to deny any mode of knowledge that
is suprasensorial and suprarational, and in consequence to deny the planes of reality to
which these modes refer and that precisely constitute the sources both of revelation and
of intellection.
Intellection in principle is for man what revelation is for the collectivity; in principle, we
say, for in fact man cannot have access to direct intellection – or gnosis – except by virtue
of the pre-existent scriptural revelation. What the Bible describes as the fall of man or the
loss of paradise coincides with our separation from total intelligence; this is why it is said
that “the kingdom of God is within you,” and again: “Knock, and it shall be opened unto
you.” The Bible itself is the multiple and mysterious objectivation of this intellect or
Logos. It is thus by way of images and enigmas the projection of what we carry in a
quasi-inaccessible depth at the bottom of our heart; and the facts of sacred history –
where nothing is left to chance – are themselves cosmic projections of the unfathomable
divine truth. [SG, Keys to the Bible]
Rhythm: Rhythm is the fixation of an instant – or of the present – in duration, in the
same way as immobility is the fixation of a point – or of the center – in space. [LAW,
The Universality of Monasticism]
Sacrament / Revelation: Outward means are necessary only because – or to the extent
that – we have lost the access to their interior archetypes; a sacrament is the
exteriorization of an immanent source of grace – the “living water” of Christ – exactly as
Revelation is an outward and macrocosmic manifestation of Intellection. [CI, The
Question of Evangelicalism]
Sacred: That is sacred which in the first place is attached to the transcendent order,
secondly, possesses the character of absolute certainty and, thirdly, eludes the
comprehension and control of the ordinary human mind. Imagine a tree whose leaves,
having no kind of direct knowledge about the root, hold a discussion about whether or not
a root exists and what its form is if it does: if a voice then came from the root telling them
that the root does exist and what its form is, that message would be sacred. The sacred is
the presence of the center in the periphery, of the immutable in the moving; dignity is
essentially an expression of it, for in dignity too the center manifests outwardly; the heart
is revealed in gestures. The sacred introduces a quality of the absolute into relativities and
confers on perishable things a texture of eternity. [UI, The Quran]
What then is the sacred in relation to the world? It is the interference of the uncreate in
the created, of the eternal in time, of the infinite in space, of the supraformal in forms; it
is the mysterious introduction into one realm of existence of a presence which in reality
contains and transcends that realm and could cause it to burst asunder in a sort of divine
explosion. The sacred is the incommensurable, the transcendent, hidden within a fragile
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