glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

his time, as though the sufficient reason for the human condition were some economic
enterprise and not immortality.) [LS, The Meaning of Caste]
Humility: With jnana, “humility” is awareness of the nothingness of the ego considered
from the standpoint of its relativity; with bhakti, humility is self-abasement before the
beauty of the Beloved everywhere present, self-annihilation before the Divine glory; with
karma, the same virtue becomes the disinterested service of one’s neighbor, the
humiliation of self for the sake of God. [LS, A View of Yoga]
A humble person is not interested in having his virtue recognized, he is interested in
surpassing himself; hence in pleasing God more than men. [THC, Survey of Integral
Anthropology]
Humility is spiritual death, the ‘losing of life’ for God, the extinction of the ego. [GDW,
The Christian Tradition, Some Thoughts on its Nature]
Humility is the vacare Deo in all its aspects, and for this reason it is perfect simplicity
and primordial purity of the soul in the face of the Divine influx. [SPHF, The Spiritual
Virtues]
St. Bernard defined humility as ‘a virtue through which a man who has a true knowledge
of himself becomes contemptible in his own eyes . . .’
Meister Eckhart said that humility consists in ‘being below’, for otherwise it is
impossible for God to give; thus lack of humility, egotism for example, does violence to
the nature of God, which consists in giving.
Christ said to St. Catherine of Siena in a vision: ‘I am He who is, thou art she who is not.’
This is the metaphysical foundation of all humility expressed in direct terms.
For Thomists humility is the measure of our nothingness in the face of God.
‘Humility’, says St. Teresa of Avila, ‘is to walk according to the Truth.’ For St. Ignatius
Loyola also, humility is first of all the simplicity of soul which makes man submit
himself quite naturally to the Divine Law, then indifference with regard to worldly
things, and finally the ascetic will to live in privations, material and moral, for the sake of
God.
Al-Qushairi: ‘It is to submit oneself to the direction of God.’ The same writer gives also
this definition: ‘It is fusion and contracting of the heart when subjugated by the Truth.’
According to At-Tirmidhi, ‘man is humble when the blazing of the fire of desires has
ceased’ (fana, ‘extinction’). [SPHF, The Spiritual Virtues]
Humility (of God): There is no virtue that does not derive from God, and there is none
that He does not possess; this allows raising the question of knowing whether He
possesses the virtue of humility, which by definition pertains to the creature; a question
that is paradoxical and ill-sounding, to say the least, but logically inevitable. The answer
is that the personal God, quite clearly, is in no way opposed to the suprapersonal Divinity
of which He existentiates certain potentialities; Being could not contradict Beyond-
Being. The God-Person is so to speak “subject” to his own Essence, the “pure Absolute”;
the divine Unity – or the homogeneity of the Divine Order – is not impaired by the
degrees of reality. To say that God is “one” does not mean that principial Reality does not
comprise degrees, but that Being is unique and indivisible; it nonetheless possesses
qualities and faculties, lacking which creatures would not possess them. But let us return
to the question of humility: just as the personal God is “subject,” hence in a certain sense
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