glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

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a “discernment of spirits” on this plane. There can be no question of introducing inferior elements into pure intellectuality; on the contrary, it is a case of introducing intelligence into the appreciation of forms, among which we live and of which we are, and which determine us more than we know. [LT, Truth and Errors Concerning Beauty] Beauty / Love: It is beauty that determines love, not inversely: the beautiful is not what we love and because we love it, but that which by its objective value obliges us to love it; we love the beautiful because it is beautiful, even if in fact it may happen that we lack judgement, which does not invalidate the principle of the normal relationship between object and subject. Likewise, the fact that one may love because of an inward beauty and in spite of an outward ugliness, or that love may be mixed with compassion or other indirect motives, cannot invalidate the nature either of beauty or of love. [SVQ, Tracing the Notion of Philosophy] Everything that Saint Paul says in his magnificent passage on love (1 Corinthians 13) is equally applicable to beauty, in a transposed sense. [LT, Truths and Errors Concerning Beauty] Beauty / Virtue: Virtue is the beauty of the soul as beauty is the virtue of forms. [LT, Truths and Errors Concerning Beauty] Being: Being does not coincide with the “pure Absolute”; it pertains to the Divine Order inasmuch as it is a direct reflection of the Absolute in the Relative, and consequently it is what may be termed paradoxically the “relatively absolute.” If the personal God were the Absolute as such, He could not be an interlocutor for man. [PM, Ex Nihilo, In Deo] Being is the relative Absolute, or God as “relatively absolute,” that is to say insofar as He creates. The pure Absolute does not create. [UI, The Path] Being / Intellect: Being is ‘ambiguous’ because it is at the same time absolute and relative, or because it is absolute while being situated in relativity, or again, to express ourselves more boldly though perhaps all the more suggestive, because it is the ‘relative Absolute’. In an analogous way, the Intellect is ‘ambiguous’ because it is at the same time divine and human, uncreated and created, principial and manifested, which can never be said of Being; Intellect is ‘manifested Principle’, while Being is ‘Principle determined’ or ‘made relative’, but always non-manifested. [GDW, Ternary Aspects of the Human Microcosm] Beyond-Being / Being: It should not be forgotten that God as Beyond-Being, or suprapersonal Self, is absolute in an intrinsic sense, while Being or the divine Person is absolute extrinsically, that is, in relation to His manifestation or to creatures, but not in Himself, nor with respect to the Intellect which “penetrates the depths of God”. [LAW, In the Wake of the Fall] The essential distinction between God as Essence or Beyond-Being, and God as Creator or Being is that Beyond-Being is absolute Necessity in itself, whereas Being is absolute Necessity in respect of the world, but not in respect of Beyond-Being. Beyond-Being, or the Self, possesses the possible as an internal dimension and in virtue of its infinitude; at this level, the possible is precisely Being, or Relativity, Maya. We would say 14
consequently that Being is not other than Possibility; possibility necessary in itself, but contingent in its increasingly relative contents; and by definition non-absolute, in the paradoxical sense of a “lesser absoluteness” (apara Brahma). [FDH, The Problem of Possibility] But let us return to supreme Beyond-Being: in order to distinguish it from Being, it could be said that the first is “absolutely infinite” whereas the second is relatively so, which, while being tautological and even contradictory, is nevertheless a useful expression in a necessarily elliptical language; the gap between logic and transcendent truths permits the latter occasionally to override the former, although the converse is clearly excluded. If we set Beyond-Being aside, we are entitled to attribute Infinitude to Being; but if it is Beyond-Being that we are taking into consideration, then we shall say that the Infinite is in truth Beyond-Being, and that Being realizes this infinitude in relative mode, thereby opening the door to the outpouring of possibilities endlessly varied, thus inexhaustible. [FDH, The Problem of Possibility] Bhakta: A bhakta is not a man who ‘thinks’, that is a man whose individuality actively participates in supra-individual knowledge and who consequently is able ‘himself’ to apply his transcendent knowledge to cosmic and human contingencies. In other words the bhakta attains and possesses knowledge, not in an intellectual, but in an ontological manner. On the individual level the thinking of a bhakta reduces itself to a sort of ‘planetary system’ of his personal realization; otherwise it is the whole tradition, that from which the bhakta sprang, which ‘thinks’ for him; it is that tradition which settles all problems situated outside the ‘system’ in question. [SPHF, The Vedanta] Bhakti / Jnana: According to a rather common error found in certain circles, people think they are dealing only with bhakti wherever they meet an emotional element and with jnana where they find intellectual dissertations; in reality, the valid criteria are as follows: where there is “ontologism” and “dualism” in a fundamental sense, it is a question of bhakti, but where there is “superontologism” and “non-dualism” jnana is to be found. [LS, A View of Yoga] Bhakti-Marga: In the path of love (the Hindu bhakti-marga, the mahabbah of Sufism), speculative activity – which by definition is of the intellectual order – does not play a preponderant part, as in the case in the way of knowledge (jnana-marga, ma‘rifah); the “lover” – the bhakta – must obtain everything by means of love and by Divine Grace; doctrinal considerations, paradoxical as it may seem given the initiatory character of bhakti, do not have in this path the crucial importance that they have in jnana . . . in order to love, one must limit or rather, one must direct one’s attention to one sole aspect of Reality, the consideration of integral Truth being more or less incompatible with the subjectivism of an exclusivistic love. The way of love is comparable to a rhythm or a melody, not to an act of reasoning; it is a path of “beauty,” not of “wisdom,” if one may so express it at the risk of seeming to say that beauty is without wisdom and wisdom without beauty; in short, the perspective of the bhakta comprises inevitable limitations due to the subjective and emotional character of the “bhaktic” method. 15
Page 1 and 2: GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED BY FRITHJOF
Page 3 and 4: Absolute: “In the Absolute, I am
Page 5 and 6: emains paradoxically attached out o
Page 7 and 8: knowledge which determines action,
Page 9 and 10: liturgical quality and - for all th
Page 11 and 12: divine Substance, but of the human
Page 13: ecause beauty is unitive and exclud
Page 17 and 18: said that the Buddhas bring salvati
Page 19 and 20: Charity means to lose oneself. [SPH
Page 21 and 22: Christianity: “God became man tha
Page 23 and 24: world which is its medium of manife
Page 25 and 26: democracy is possible; but then it
Page 27 and 28: True dignity could not be affected,
Page 29 and 30: total since this form is a symbol a
Page 31 and 32: Ellipsism (Oriental): Which consist
Page 33 and 34: use of the intelligence, and not on
Page 35 and 36: Now, if we start out from the idea
Page 37 and 38: material world. The answer to evolu
Page 39 and 40: Exoterism transmits aspects or frag
Page 41 and 42: certainly not their more or less na
Page 43 and 44: Faith / Intelligence: Unlike an int
Page 45 and 46: pure and simple, constitute what we
Page 47 and 48: Existence itself; now, no one can c
Page 49 and 50: Generosity (towards man): Generosit
Page 51 and 52: it is of this we are speaking - suc
Page 53 and 54: or this Divine Face turned towards
Page 55 and 56: ejoicing in the good which they enj
Page 57 and 58: If love takes precedence over hatre
Page 59 and 60: Holiness: Holiness is the sleep of
Page 61 and 62: sham absolutes, which in addition a
Page 63 and 64: “humble,” in relation to the su
Page 65 and 66:
wisdom. Esoterically, one can disti
Page 67 and 68:
whatever be its value, has no dogma
Page 69 and 70:
the cogito alone. From the point of
Page 71 and 72:
“activity,” the intelligence re
Page 73 and 74:
Intentionism / Sincerism: Intention
Page 75 and 76:
Jivan-mukta: According to Shankara,
Page 77 and 78:
intellectual or heart knowledge, th
Page 79 and 80:
The validity of a logical demonstra
Page 81 and 82:
Substance; therefore it cannot beco
Page 83 and 84:
It is in man’s nature to be able
Page 85 and 86:
enveloped Christ’s ascension. Tha
Page 87 and 88:
Matter, in fact, refers in the fina
Page 89 and 90:
divine possibilities projected into
Page 91 and 92:
Metaphysic: The science of the Abso
Page 93 and 94:
hardly arises in pure metaphysics a
Page 95 and 96:
Morality (two sources): Morality ha
Page 97 and 98:
The mythological wording of a tradi
Page 99 and 100:
space, and the immobility of the su
Page 101 and 102:
Nothing / Being: The notion of “n
Page 103 and 104:
“heart,” given that “the king
Page 105 and 106:
Orthodoxy (quintessential): Quintes
Page 107 and 108:
Passion, as it is to be understood
Page 109 and 110:
principles, together with the scien
Page 111 and 112:
illusory. The innovators, nihilists
Page 113 and 114:
Pneumatic / Psychic / Hylic: The
Page 115 and 116:
themselves; and the fact that they
Page 117 and 118:
Prophet: The Prophet is the human n
Page 119 and 120:
should perceive without difficulty,
Page 121 and 122:
absoluteness; it seeks to destroy e
Page 123 and 124:
ultimate purpose, it is difficult f
Page 125 and 126:
plane, but rather a sphere of reali
Page 127 and 128:
Sacred Scripture: A sacred Scriptur
Page 129 and 130:
and its ultimate effects cannot but
Page 131 and 132:
logicians, whereas the Semites - if
Page 133 and 134:
horizontal and ambiguous faculty, w
Page 135 and 136:
Simplicity: Simplicity is indiffere
Page 137 and 138:
liberating. Love, which responds to
Page 139 and 140:
Path is effort; if as intelligence,
Page 141 and 142:
- whether it is a question of the P
Page 143 and 144:
other a belief in unreal or ineffec
Page 145 and 146:
The Christians had no reason at all
Page 147 and 148:
truths well enough in theory, has n
Page 149 and 150:
Transcendence / Immanence (objectiv
Page 151 and 152:
to us; it is Revelation entering in
Page 153 and 154:
a certain right to sacrifice the tr
Page 155 and 156:
A spiritual virtue is nothing other
Page 157 and 158:
Subject, which is immanent, while a
Page 159 and 160:
The world is divine through its cha
Page 161 and 162:
BIBLIOGRAPHY Books by Frithjof Schu
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glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

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