glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

“humble,” in relation to the suprapersonal Divinity, so too man ought to show himself
humble in relation to his own heart-intellect, the immanent divine spark; the proud man
sins against his own immortal essence as well as against God and men. [PM, Man in the
Cosmogonic Projection]
God is not “humble” like man, because He could not abase Himself before someone
external and superior to Himself, for such a one does not exist. The “humility” of God, as
we have said, is the simplicity of His essence, for He is without parts. There is, however,
another aspect of the “divine humility,” one that is both intrinsic and anthropomorphic:
“When the servant takes one step towards his Lord the Lord gets up from his throne and
takes one hundred steps to meet his servant”(Hadith of the Prophet). As for man, he is not
a pure essence, but a mixture of spirit and earth; therefore he cannot in himself be
“good.” [LS, A View of Yoga]
Humility (true): True humility is to know that we can add nothing to God and that, even
if we possessed all possible perfections and had accomplished the most extraordinary
works, our disappearance would take nothing away from the Eternal. [LAW, In the Wake
of the Fall]
Humility / Charity (perfect): To know that ‘I am nothing’ is perfect humility; to know
that the ‘neighbor is myself’ is perfect charity. That is perfect which is rooted in
existence, not that which depends on action. [SPHF, The Spiritual Virtues]
Humility / Charity (quintessence): The quintessence of humility, we insist, is the
awareness of our nothingness in the face of the Absolute; in the same order of ideas, the
quintessence of charity is our love of the Sovereign Good, which gives to our social
compassion its most profound meaning. [RHC, Virtue and Way]
Humility / Modesty: Humility, for its part, is in no wise contrary to authority, and could
not be so since authority is a positive quality; humility is not modesty, by which we mean
that authority excludes modesty while nonetheless including humility. Setting aside all
humilitarianism – automatic and extravagant as it may be, though inevitable and
efficacious in the psychological order corresponding to it – humility is the awareness of
our real, and not imaginary, littleness in its various aspects, together with the absence of
all desire for individual affirmation. Modesty, on the contrary, is the awareness, not of
our ontological limitation or of our human insufficiency, but simply of our incompetence
or our incapacity, as the case may be. Thus on the one hand modesty resembles humility,
yet on the other hand differs from it, and this may be illustrated by saying that a modest
man must of necessity be humble, but a humble man need not be modest. [SME, Passion
and Pride]
Humility / Pride: Humility is a state of emptiness in which our thoughts and actions
appear to be extraneous to ourselves, so that we judge them as we judge the thoughts and
actions of others.
Pride is a blind plenitude which monopolizes everything. [SPHF, The Spiritual Virtues]
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