glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

to us; it is Revelation entering into our consciousness and becoming in some degree
assimilated by our being. [UI, The Path]
Truth (universal): We have spoken of universal truths; by this term we mean principles
which determine everything that exists. [THC, Fundamental Keys]
Truth / Intellection: Truth in the current sense of the word, that of a concordance
between a state of fact and our consciousness, is indeed situated on the plane of thought,
or at least it applies a priori to that plane. As for Intellection, its object is “reality” of
which “truth” is the conceptual clothing. But in practice the terms “reality” and “truth”
usually merge into one another. [LT, Truths and Errors Concerning Beauty]
Truth / Presence: The saving manifestation of the Absolute is either Truth or Presence,
but it is not one or the other in an exclusive fashion, for as Truth It comprises Presence,
and as Presence It comprises Truth. Such is the twofold nature of all theophanies; thus
Christ is essentially a manifestation of Divine Presence, but he is thereby also Truth: “I
am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” No one enters into the saving proximity of the
Absolute except through a manifestation of the Absolute, be it a priori Presence or Truth
. . . [FSR, Truth and Presence]
Truth / Reality: Truth and reality must not be confused: the latter relates to “being” and
signifies the aseity of things, and the former relates to “knowing” – to the image of reality
reflected in the mirror of the intellect – and signifies the adequation of “being” and
“knowing”; it is true that reality is often designated by the word “truth,” but this is a
dialectical synthesis which aims at defining truth in relation to its virtuality of “being,” of
“reality.” If truth is thus made to embrace ontological reality, aseity, the inexpressible,
and so also the “personal” realization of the Divine, there is clearly no “total truth” on the
plane of thought; but if by “truth” is understood thought insofar as it is an adequate
reflection, on the intellectual plane, of “being,” there is a “total truth” on this plane, but
on condition firstly that nothing quantitative is envisaged in this totality, and secondly
that it is made clear that this totality can have a relative sense, according to the order of
thought to which it belongs. There is a total truth which is such because it embraces, in
principle, all possible truths: this is metaphysical doctrine, whether its enunciation be
simple or complex, symbolical or dialectical; but there is also a truth which is total on the
plane of spiritual realization, and in this case “truth” becomes synonymous with “reality.”
[LS, Orthodoxy and Intellectuality]
“Understand” / “Understanding”: It is necessary to point out the common abuse of the
word “understand,” or of the notion of “understanding”: we are told that one has to
“understand” an evil-doer or a bad man and that to understand is to forgive. If this were
so, what is one to think of sinners who convert, and above all of the traditional injunction
to “know thyself”? The good thief of the Gospel did not go to Paradise for nothing, and
Saint Augustine knew what he was doing when writing his Confessions. With a quite
characteristic inconsistency, the partisans of unconditional “understanding” – it is as if it
sufficed to be “me” to always be right – are always careful to keep from “understanding”
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