glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Simplicity: Simplicity is indifference to the egoistic reactions of the soul; it is
imperturbable and calm concentration on the “one thing necessary.” [CI, The Spiritual
Virtues According to St. Francis of Assisi]
Sin: By “sin” must be understood our separation from the Divine Center insofar as this
shows itself in attitudes or acts; the essence of sin is a forgetting of the Absolute, which is
at the same time the Infinite and the Perfect, and this forgetting coincides with centrifugal
passion and at the same time with egoistic hardening. [TM, Usurpations of Religious
Feeling]
If we wish to give the word “sin” its broadest or deepest meaning, we would say that it
expresses above all an attitude of the heart; hence a “being” and not a simple “doing” or
“not doing” . . .
According to the Bible, the forbidden tree was that of the discernment between “good”
and “evil”; now this discernment, or this difference, pertains to the very nature of Being;
consequently, its source could not be in the creature; to claim it for oneself is to wish to
be equal to the Creator, and that is the very essence of sin; of all sin. Indeed, the sinner
decides what is good, counter to the objective nature of things; he willingly deludes
himself about things and about himself, whence the fall, which is nothing other than the
reaction of reality. [PM, Delineations of Original Sin]
“Sin” is thus defined as an act which, firstly, is opposed to the divine Nature in one or
another of its forms or modes (the reference here is to the Divine Qualities and the
intrinsic virtues which reflect them) and which, secondly, engenders in principle
posthumous suffering; it does so “in principle”, but not always in fact, for repentance and
positive acts on the one hand and the divine Mercy on the other efface sins, or can efface
them. [LAW, In the Wake of the Fall]
Sin (by omission): According to the Apostle James, he who knows to do good and does
not do it, commits a sin; this is the very definition of sin by omission, but at the same
time it goes beyond the framework of a formalistic and exoteric morality. [PM,
Delineations of Original Sin]
Sincerity: Sincerity is the passage from the cerebral to the cardiac, from the intellectual
to the existential, from the partial to the total. The content of this transfer is the idea of
Unity, and it is realized with the concurrence of the virtues, which for their part are so
many modes or proofs of sincerity. [IFA, Transcendence and Immanence in the Spiritual
Economy of Islam]
The root of all true sincerity is sincerity towards God, not towards our own good
pleasure; this means that it is not enough to believe in God, but that all the consequences
of belief must be drawn in our outer and inner comportment; and when we aspire to a
perfection – since God is perfect and wants us to be perfect – we seek to have a
semblance of it even before we realize it, and in order to realize it . . . The content of
sincerity is our leaning towards God and our consequent adherence to the rules which this
leaning imposes on us and not our nature pure and simple with all its shortcomings; to be
sincere is not to be imperfect before men, but to be virtuous before God, and to enter
accordingly into the mould of virtues as yet unassimilated, whatever men may think . . .
Sincerity is the absence of falsehood in inward and outward behaviour; to lie is
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