glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Manifestation: Manifestation is not the Principle, yet it is the Principle by participation,
in virtue of its “non-inexistence”; and Manifestation – the word indicates this – is the
Principle manifested, but without being able to be the Principle in itself. [SVQ, The
Quintessential Esoterism of Islam]
Mantra: In connection with the mystery of inwardness . . . we should perhaps mention
here the power of the mantra, of the word in its “uncreated” essence – thus a priori
inward or cardiac – and interiorizing from the standpoint of the outward ego. The mantra
is a revealed substitute of the primordial sound; purifying and saving, it is a manifestation
of the Shakti as power of union. [RHC, Mahashakti]
Mask: In ordinary language, the word “mask” is synonymous with “false appearance,”
hence with insincerity; this is plausible from the standpoint of ordinary psychology, but it
is to lose sight of the fact that there are sacred masks and priestly vestments which
express either what transcends the wearer, or on the contrary express his transcendent
substance itself. It is thus, moreover, that in historical religions an upaya serves as the
vestment of the “naked truth,” the primordial, perennial and universal religion:
symbolism transmits the heavenly Message and at the same time dissimulates the
provisionally unassimilable mystery. [PM, The Play of Masks]
Mask / Veil: By the veil one wishes to appear “less than one is” since one desires to
“vanish”; by the mask on the contrary, one wishes to appear to be “more than one is,”
since one’s intention is to express something that one is not, unless the mask serves to
manifest the very “heart” of the wearer and to specify thereby a personal value – which
actually is transpersonal – and which otherwise would remain invisible. [PM, The Play of
Masks]
Materialism: Nothing is more contradictory than to deny the spirit, or even simply the
psychic element, in favor of matter alone, for it is the spirit that denies, whereas matter
remains inert and unconscious. The fact that matter can be thought about proves precisely
that materialism contradicts itself at its starting point, rather as with Pyrrhonism, for
which it is true that there is no truth, or with relativism, for which all is relative except
this affirmation. [PM, In the Face of Contingency]
The flagrant contradiction of materialism is the negation of the spirit by means of the
spirit; that of existentialism, is making use of this negation as a basis from which to
dismantle the normal functions of intelligence under the pretext of defending the rights of
“existence” or the “concrete” against “abstraction.” “The more he blasphemes, the more
he praises God,” says Eckhart; materialist and concretist ideologies, by the very excess of
their inanity, bear witness indirectly to the reality of the spirit and consequently also to its
primacy. [FDH, Aspects of the Theophanic Phenomenon of Consciousness]
Matter: Matter is the sensible manifestation of existence itself . . . Matter extends –
starting from its base, ether – from extreme subtlety to extreme solidity; one could say:
from substantiality to accidentality. [FDH, Structure and Universality of the Conditions
of Existence]
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