glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Absolute: “In the Absolute, I am not, and you are not, and God (in His personal
determination) is not, because He (the Absolute) is beyond the reach of all word and all
thought.” {Sri Ramakrishna} [LS, A View of Yoga]
The Absolute is not the Absolute inasmuch as it contains aspects, but inasmuch as It
transcends them. [UI, The Quran]
If we were to be asked what the Absolute is, we would reply first of all that it is necessary
and not merely possible Reality; absolute Reality, hence infinite and perfect, precisely;
and we would add – in conformity with the level of the question asked – that the
Absolute is that which, in the world, is reflected as the existence of things. Without the
Absolute, there is no existence; the aspect of absoluteness of a thing is what distinguishes
it from inexistence, if one may so put it. Compared to empty space, each grain of sand is
a miracle. [FDH, The Interplay of the Hypostases]
The Absolute, or the Essence, intrinsically comprises Infinitude; it is as the Infinite that it
radiates. Divine Radiation projects the Essence into the “void,” but without there being
any “going out” whatsoever, for the Principle is immutable and indivisible, nothing can
be taken away from it; by this projection on the surface of a nothingness that in itself is
inexistent, the Essence is reflected in the mode of “forms” or “accidents.” But the “life”
of the Infinite is not only centrifugal, it is also centripetal; it is alternately or
simultaneously – depending on the relationships envisaged – Radiation and
Reintegration; the latter is the apocatastatic “return” of forms and accidents into the
Essence, without nevertheless there being anything added to the latter, for it is absolute
Plenitude. Moreover, and even above all, Infinitude – like Perfection – is an intrinsic
characteristic of the Absolute: it is as it were its inward life, or its love which by
overflowing, so to speak prolongs itself and creates the world. [SVQ, Hypostatic
Dimensions of Unity]
Only the definition of the Absolute as such is absolute, and every explanatory description
belongs to relativity precisely on account of the differentiated nature of its content, which
is not for that reason incorrect, to be sure, but rather, is limited and therefore replaceable;
so that if one wishes to give an absolute definition of the Absolute, one has to say that
God is One. “The testimony of Unity is one” (At-Tawhidu wahid), say the Sufis, and by
this they mean that an expression, within the limits of its possibility, must be one with its
content and its cause. [CI, Alternations in Semitic Monotheism]
Absolute / Infinite: In metaphysics, it is necessary to start from the idea that the
Supreme Reality is absolute, and that being absolute it is infinite. That is absolute which
allows of no augmentation or diminution, or of no repetition or division; it is therefore
that which is at once solely itself and totally itself. And that is infinite which is not
determined by any limiting factor and therefore does not end at any boundary; it is in the
first place Potentiality or Possibility as such, and ipso facto the Possibility of things,
hence Virtuality. Without All-Possibility, there would be neither Creator nor creation,
neither Maya nor Samsara.
The Infinite is so to speak the intrinsic dimension of plenitude proper to the Absolute; to
say Absolute is to say Infinite, the one being inconceivable without the other. We can
symbolize the relation between these two aspects of Supreme Reality by the following
images: in space, the absolute is the point, and the infinite is extension; in time, the
absolute is the moment, and the infinite is duration. On the plane of matter, the absolute
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