glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Holiness: Holiness is the sleep of the ego and the wake of the immortal soul. The moving
surface of our being must sleep and must therefore withdraw from images and instincts,
whereas the depths of our being must be awake in the consciousness of the Divine, thus
lighting up, like a motionless flame, the silence of the holy sleep. [TM, On Holiness]
Homo Sapiens: To say homo sapiens, is to say homo religiosus; there is no man without
God.
. . . Our definition of homo sapiens being deiformity – which makes of him a total being,
hence a theophany – it is only logical and legitimate that, for us, the final word on
anthropology is conformity to celestial norms and movement towards God; or in other
words, our perfection in the likeness of concentric circles and centripetal radii; both of
which are disposed in view of the divine Center. [THC, Survey of Integral Anthropology]
Horizontality / Outwardness: To be “horizontal” is to love only terrestrial life, to the
detriment of the ascending and celestial path; to be “exteriorized,” is to love only outer
things, to the detriment of moral and spiritual values. Or again: horizontality is to sin
against transcendence, thus it is to forget God and consequently the meaning of life; and
outwardness is to sin against immanence, thus to forget our immortal soul and
consequently its vocation. [PM, Delineations of Original Sin]
Human: What is human is what is natural to man, and what is most essentially or most
specifically natural to man is what relates to the Absolute and which consequently
requires the transcending of what is earthly in man. [FDH, Consequences Flowing from
the Mystery of Subjectivity]
There is a great deal of talk these days about “humanism,” talk which forgets that once
man abandons his prerogatives to matter, to machines, to quantitative knowledge, he
ceases to be truly “human.” What is most totally human is what gives man the best
chances for the hereafter, and this is what also most deeply corresponds to his nature. [UI,
Islam]
What is most profoundly and authentically human rejoins the Divine by definition. [THC,
Concerning a Question of Astronomy]
There is nothing human which is not an evil from some point of view: even tradition
itself is in certain respects an “evil,” since it must handle evil things in man and these
human ills invade it in their turn, but it is then a lesser evil, or a “necessary evil,” and,
humanly speaking, it would obviously be far truer to call it a “good.” The pure truth is
that “God alone is good” and that every earthly thing has some ambiguous side to it. [LS,
The Meaning of Caste]
Human Animality: It should be noted that human animality is situated beneath animality
as such, for animals innocently follow their immanent law and thereby enjoy a certain
natural and indirect contemplation of the Divine Prototype; whereas there is decadence,
corruption and subversion when man voluntarily reduces himself to his animality. [SVQ,
Paradoxes of an Esoterism]
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