glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Sacred Scripture: A sacred Scripture . . . is a totality, a diversified image of Being,
diversified and transfigured for the sake of the human receptacle; it is a light that wills to
make itself visible to clay, or wills to take the form of that clay; or still in other words, it
is a truth which, since it must address itself to beings compounded of clay, has no means
of expression other than the very substance of the nescience of which our soul is made.
[UI, The Quran]
Sacred Thought / Profane Thought (difference between): There is an essential
distinction to be made here: there are errors that lie within the framework of integral and
decisive truth, and there are errors that break this framework, and therein lies the whole
difference between sacred and profane thought. It is sometimes said that no doctrine is
entirely wrong and that there is truth in everything, but this is altogether false, because,
while fundamental – and thus decisive – truths can neutralize any minor errors in a
doctrine, minor truths are valueless within the framework of a major error; this is why
one must never glorify an error for having taught us some truth or other, nor look for
truth in errors on the pretext that truth is everywhere the same – for there are important
nuances here – and above all one must not reject a fundamental and comprehensive truth
because of a minor error that may happen to accompany it.
Be that as it may, the human soul is capable, paradoxically and up to a certain point, of
combining spiritual knowledge with a singular incapacity to express it in accordance with
the total context and the logic of things. There is, after all, no common measure between
the inner man attracted by the emanations of the Infinite, and the outer man living on
preconceptions and habits and sometimes allowing his thought to move on a level
proportionally far below his intelligence. It is of course desirable for man to match his
thought to his real knowledge without letting any purely formal inconsistencies persist,
but this is a particular grace. [CI, Dilemmas of Moslem Scholasticism]
Saint: A saint is a void open for the passage of God. [SW, Complexity of the Concept of
Charity]
The saint is the man who acts as if he had died and returned to life; having already ceased
to be ‘himself’, in the earthly sense, he has absolutely no intention of returning to that
dream, but maintains himself in a kind of wakefulness that the world, with its narrowness
and impurities, cannot understand. [GDW, The Christian Tradition, Some Thoughts on its
Nature]
Salvation / Morality: Salvation consists in leaving the infernal circle of “concordant
actions and reactions”; and in this connection, morality appears as a quite provisional and
fragmentary thing, and even as inoperative in the sight of the Absolute, since it is still
involved in the indefinite chain of acts and the existential fruit of acts. [TB, Originality of
Buddhism]
Sanatana Dharma: The “Eternal (or Primordial) Law”. [TUR, Limits of
Religious Expansion]
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