glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

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.
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